Hi,

I need to be able to do the following procedure;

retrieve all items from a mysql db table, then check to see if the files from that table exist on the server (images), if not, to "clean up" and remove the physical file - so that only the files from the db exist.

This will run via cron

Has anyone done something similar before, willing to assist me with a basicscope of actions to work on?

Thanks in advance

Steven

Steven Macintyre wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I need to be able to do the following procedure;
>
> retrieve all items from a mysql db table, then check to see if the files from that table exist on the server (images), if not, to "clean up" and remove the physical file - so that only the files from the db exist.
>
> This will run via cron
>
> Has anyone done something similar before, willing to assist me with a basic scope of actions to work on?

Hi,

Do you already have some code? Do you got stuck somewhere?

Aschwin Wesselius

Steven Macintyre wrote:

> retrieve all items from a mysql db table, then check to see if the
> files from that table exist on the server (images), if not, to "clean
> up" and remove the physical file - so that only the files from the db
> exist.

When you are comparing the contents of disk vs. db, you have three
possible outcomes:

1) file is listed in db, but not found on disk
2) file is found on disk, but not in db.
3) file is found on disk and in db.

I think I'd probably read the directories of where the physical files
are located into an array = files_in_disk(), then read in the file list
from the database into files_in_db(). Use array_diff() to identify the
discrepancies, then sort them out (delete file, add row, delete row).

for files_on_disk(), lookup opendir() and readdir().
for files_in_db(), lookup mysql_query() and mysql_fetch_assoc().

Will consume a lot of memory if you've got a lot of files.



/Per Jessen, Zürich

I handle your object a different and, I believe, a simpler way.

Instead of a cronjob, I call a cleanup function whenever a page is opened.

Obviously, this approach requires a time overhead and thus is not good for very
high volume sites. You can mitigate this drawback by maintaining a simple
touch() file that keeps track of the time when your cleanup function is run and
insure it only runs once a day, or whatever frequency you need. You can even
make the file sticky so it stays in memory to further reduce the overhead.



Steven Macintyre wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I need to be able to do the following procedure;
>
> retrieve all items from a mysql db table, then check to see if the files from that table exist on the server (images), if not, to "clean up" and remove the physical file - so that only the files from the db exist.
>
> This will run via cron
>
> Has anyone done something similar before, willing to assist me with a basic scope of actions to work on?
>
> Thanks in advance
>
> Steven
>

At 9:35 AM +0100 3/13/08, Steven Macintyre wrote:
> Hi,
>
>I need to be able to do the following procedure;
>
>retrieve all items from a mysql db table, then check to see if the
>files from that table exist on the server (images), if not, to
>"clean up" and remove the physical file - so that only the files
>from the db exist.
>
>This will run via cron
>
>Has anyone done something similar before, willing to assist me with
>a basic scope of actions to work on?
>
>Thanks in advance
>
>Steven


Steven:

Are you saying that if images exist in your database AND appear in
the file system, then don't delete them?

Why not give your approved images a prefix and just delete everything
that doesn't via a cron?

Cheers,

tedd


--
-------
http://sperling.com http://ancientstones.com http://earthstones.com

Steven Macintyre wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I need to be able to do the following procedure;
>
> retrieve all items from a mysql db table, then check to see if the files from that table exist on the server (images), if not, to "clean up" and remove the physical file - so that only the files from the db exist.
>
> This will run via cron
>
> Has anyone done something similar before, willing to assist me with a basic scope of actions to work on?
>
> Thanks in advance
>
> Steven
>

Maybe a dumb question, but after truing up the db and fs, why not delete
the file when you delete from the db?

-Shawn