Poll Folders for new File

[philaj]

Hi All - hope someone has done this before.

I need to create a PHP script that detects the presence of a new file appearing into a folder, and process it.

This HAS to be supported by Windows IIS  (Have looked at FAM for Linux but can't use it).

I could do a loop with some sleep that checks the directory every x seconds - but this has been discounted by the client as either a) too resource hungry or b) not quick enough if there is a delay.

Add ons, extensions or even external 3rd party tools would all be acceptable.

Any ideas?

Phil

[ginerjm]

How do these files actually "appear" in your system? Can you not be alerted to a new upload before or as it happens?

[requinix]

Hypothetically you could use the COM/DOTNET extension and use .NET's FileSystemWatcher.

[philaj]

 

ginerjm - The files are ftp'd into a location - and my script needs to process them. 

Thanks requinix I'll check that out

[Phi11W]

On 6/4/2019 at 10:50 AM, philaj said:

I need to create a PHP script that detects the presence of a new file appearing into a folder, and process it.

This HAS to be supported by Windows IIS

IIS implements a Request-Response model.  It's not suited to long-running or cyclical processes.

However, PHP code doesn't only run inside IIS.  You can run it as a standalone program by "feeding" the PHP script file into the PHP executable.

php.exe -f myscript.php

That means that you can create a PHP script that does whatever you want it to, and schedule it to run whenever you need it to run using, say, Windows Task Scheduler.

 

[maxxd]

It's a kludge, but you could always keep a list of files in a database or flatfile and schedule a CRON to run a script that scans the directory for file names, then compare that to the saved list. You'd know if something had been added or removed, though it wouldn't be instant.

[ginerjm]

This FTP process.  Could you possibly have an influence on those doing those transfers to use a script that you provide that would not only send you the file but send a message to a script that monitors an email address of yours and follows up by doing your processing?