a PHP script works fine when called from the browser but not as a shell script

[lawrence k]

I've got a script called makeRss.php. It works fine if I try to open it
with my browser. It makes an RSS feed for every page on my site. You
can see it working here:

http://www.autostratus.com/index.php?whatPage=makeRss

It does just what I want it to do.

However, I need for this script to get called every 15 minutes. So I
set it up as a cron job. And cron doesn't like calling this thing. Cron
is nice enough to send me an email with an error message. Every 15
minutes I get this:

/home/httpd/vhosts/autostratus.com/httpdocs/makeRss.php: line 1: ?php:
No such file
or directory
/home/httpd/vhosts/autostratus.com/httpdocs/makeRss.php: line 2: syntax
error near
unexpected token `"tagIndexLibra ry.php"'
/home/httpd/vhosts/autostratus.com/httpdocs/makeRss.php: line 2:
`include_once(" tagIndexLibrary .php");
Why would cron have a problem if the script works fine from the web
browser?

[lawrence k]

Andy Hassall wrote:

On 21 Dec 2005 09:06:53 -0800, "lawrence k" <lk******@geoci ties.com> wrote:

However, I need for this script to get called every 15 minutes. So I
set it up as a cron job. And cron doesn't like calling this thing. Cron
is nice enough to send me an email with an error message. Every 15
minutes I get this:

/home/httpd/vhosts/autostratus.com/httpdocs/makeRss.php: line 1: ?php:
No such fil

You seem to be trying to run the .php file directly. This won't work; you
either need a #! line at the beginning, or you need to run it via PHP.

So either:

#!/path/to/php

as the first line, which will mess things up when it's run via the web, or
change your cron entry to:

*/15 * * * * /path/to/php /path/to/makeRss.php

... as I'm assuming it's currently something like:

*/15 * * * * /path/to/makeRss.php

Thanks so much for all your help. I took the second route you here
suggest. And I got it to work, for the most part. The RSS feeds are
being created. However, the script is not allowed to run chmod() when
it is called by cron, though it has no problem running chmod() when it
is called from the browser. Why would that be? Is the user different?
Is the user Apache when it is called from the browser, and PHP when
called as a shell script? If so, I assume PHP lacks the rights to
overwrite what Apache did?

It also says gethostbyaddr() is not working. I don't know why. It seems
to work when the script is called from the browser.
I'm getting this, which confirms success but also has error messages:

Content-type: text/html
X-Powered-By: PHP/4.3.2
Set-Cookie: machineId=21736 43fecddb17b14e5 3376e348e98c; expires=Sun,
16-Apr-2006
23:00:40 GMT

<br />
<b>Warning</b>: gethostbyaddr() : Address is not a valid IPv4 or IPv6
address in
<b>/home/httpd/vhosts/autostratus.com/httpdocs/tagIndexLibrary .php</b>
on line <b>74</b><br />
<br />
<b>Warning</b>: chmod(): Operation not permitted in
<b>/home/httpd/vhosts/autostratus.com/httpdocs/tagIndexLibrary .php</b>
on line <b>1530</b><br />

<p><a href="rss/music.xml">We just created the file rss/music.xml</a>
<br />
<b>Warning</b>: chmod(): Operation not permitted in
<b>/home/httpd/vhosts/autostratus.com/httpdocs/tagIndexLibrary .php</b>
on line <b>1530</b><br />

<p><a href="rss/critical_mass_c onsciousness.xm l">We just
created the file rss/critical_mass_c onsciousness.xm l</a>
<br />
<b>Warning</b>: chmod(): Operation not permitted in
<b>/home/httpd/vhosts/autostratus.com/httpdocs/tagIndexLibrary .php</b>
on line <b>1530</b><br />