Can a PHP script be run regularly on a server without requests from a client?

Question

I\'ll be writing a script to parse text documents into a MySQL database. I\'ll be converting PDF\'s to text with a separate utility. These PDF\'s will be submitted via e-m

Answer 1

Cron Job is the way to go. Also, if I may make a recommendation, make certain to place the PHP script out of a web accessible directory and run it via CLI php.

If your script is placed in a directory that is accessible from the web, it's possible that it could run more often than desired... especially if a bot/crawler gets hold of it.