I'm new to PHP and web applications. I have PHP code which collects info, from 5 huge XML files provided by other websites into a private MySQL database.
These XML files are updated and changed over time, and I want my database to be refreshed every day at 3:00 AM.
Can I make the hosting server run the PHP code by itsself? How?
You can use CRON jobs. Cron will automate your commands on a specific time.
The software utility Cron is a time-based job scheduler in Unix-like computer operating systems.
As Hobo Sapiens says:
Put a shell script in one of these folders: /etc/cron.daily, /etc/cron.hourly, /etc/cron.monthly or /etc/cron.weekly based on how often you want the script to run.
The shell script should look something like this:
#!/bin/sh
php -q htdocs/file.php
For more specific timings take a look at How do I set up a Cron job?.
If you don't have SSH access to the server, you could also set up a cron job locally to ping the remote server using wget --spider or curl.
