Using MySQL instead
I wondered about going for a completely new solution using MySQL. I'm embarrassed to admit that although I've read (and even hacked) a few simple php scripts that have incorporated calls to a MySQL database, I've never actually created a MySQL database table or written a script that interacts with a MySQL database from scratch. There's a first time for everything, and this might be it for me and MySQL!Actually it wouldn't be a completely new solution, because the algorithm is essentially the same as before, and I would need to reuse some of my existing php code, and - come to think of it - I'll still be stuck with the problem of how to verify that a supposedly expired web page is indeed still expired!
I prepared the MySQL table anyway, although still not certain as I write this whether to switch to MySQL or perservere with xml files...
% mysql -p bushm
Enter password: ****
Welcome to the MySQL monitor. Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 922925 to server version: 3.23.32
Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the buffer
mysql> CREATE TABLE expirycheckertable (
-> id int primary key auto_increment,
-> url varchar(255),
-> expirydate varchar(255),
-> owner varchar(255),
-> message varchar(255)
-> );
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.08 sec)
mysql> SHOW TABLES;
+--------------------+
| Tables_in_bushm |
+--------------------+
| expirycheckertable |
+--------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)
mysql> DESCRIBE expirycheckertable;
+------------+--------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| Field | Type | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+------------+--------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| id | int(11) | | PRI | NULL | auto_increment |
| url | varchar(255) | YES | | NULL | |
| expirydate | varchar(255) | YES | | NULL | |
| owner | varchar(255) | YES | | NULL | |
| message | varchar(255) | YES | | NULL | |
+------------+--------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
5 rows in set (0.00 sec)
mysql>