How can I get something to run at an exact time? That is with time zones? I want this thing I am making to run once, at say 9pm pacific time. I am worried about members in other time zones getting it to run earlier/later.

THis is what I have now:

if ($mon_num == 1 && $mday == 31 && $hour == 9 || $mon_num == 1 && $mday > 31 || $mon_num > 1) {DO SOMETHING} 

TIA

Really? Someone has thought of this? 
So I don't have to worry? My code will run off my time with get_date stuff? That's cool! THanks..

You're still not going to get it to run at the exact time unless there is a user around at the exact time to trigger the script.  Otherwise the script will run later, when a user finally comes along to trigger it.

Dan

You use sub get_date to return a time/date string in the format "12/29/01 at 17:52:34". This is the localtime at the server.

This is usually then passed to sub timeformat. This modifies the string to apply the time offset for that user and apply the time format.

Based on what you said I think you've no need for the time offsets/formats so just use get_date to get the current date and time at your server, in the format I mentioned above. You can then split it up to get the day/month etc., there is code in sub timeformat you can copy to do this quickly.

You could use perl to get the actual time and use javascript for the countdown then.

I don't know the exactly how Javascript works but I would have thought instead of getting the user's local time with

today = (new Date()).getTime(); 

you could maybe do something like

$thetime = localtime; <-- in Perl

today = (new Date($thetime)); <-- then in Javascript 

ie. you're getting the server localtime in Perl, and then when you print the Javascript you pass that time to Date instead of using the client-side getTime.

Converting the YaBB date into a format javascript accepts would be easy, you'd just need to split up "12/29/01 at 17:52:34" to get the individual parts and then create a new string in the format you want i.e. "Jan 31, 2004 11:05:00". As you can see the time part doesn't need any alterations anyway.

i think i got a sweet perl time thing going on, but i can't seem to mix it with the javascript... i need fresh eyes on this...

sweet perl time thing:

($sec,$min,$hour,$mday,$mon,$year,$wday,$yday,$isdst) = localtime(time);

$year += 1900;
$hour=$hour+$offset;
if ($hour >= 24) {
$hour = $hour - 24;
$mday = $mday + 1;
}
if ($hour >= 12) {
    if ($hour > 12){
          $hour = $hour - 12;
       }
    $ampm = "pm";
}
else { $ampm = "am"; }

if ($sec < 10) { $sec = "0$sec"; }
if ($min < 10) { $min = "0$min"; }
if ($mon < 10) { $mon = "0$mon"; }
if ($mday < 10) { $mday = "0$mday"; }
$month = ($mon + 1);
@months = ("Jan","Feb","Mar","Apr","May","Jun","Jul","Aug","Sep","Oct","Nov","Dec");
my $date = "$months[$mon] $mday $year";
chop($date) if ($date =~ /\n$/);

my $datetime = "$date $hour:$min:$sec"; 

javascript :

function setup(day,box)
{
today = (new Date()).getTime();
the_day = (new Date(day)).getTime();
time = (the_day - today);
document.forms[box].time2.value=time;
}


 

I can't seem to force-feed perl (first code block) into the Javascript without busting the timer. UGH.

I tried : "today = $datetime" and some variations..

Hitting a wall!