Time between CRON jobs (is 20 seconds ok?)

[Phree]

Hi all,

I have a couple of php scripts that I need to run via CRON. I have them running fine and currently running every 15 minutes. I'll quickly explain what they do:

One of them monitors an email address. If it finds an email with an image attached, it stores it in a specific folder;
Second one checks that specific folder and then moves & renames the image to a naming convention I need, to another folder.

Now it's a long story (which I won't bore you with) why I need both scripts running. Trouble is, if more than one image is emailed in in between the jobs running, when they run, the first job does what is should, but then the second job only picks up the first image and then deletes anymore images.

So that's what the jobs do...My questions are:

Would it be ok to run these jobs say every 20 seconds? - Would it hammer my server too much?

I'm thinking of modifying the jobs to loop 4 times every 20 seconds and then just setting the CRON to be every minute...Would that be a better way?

Thanks for any help/advice.

[PWSowner]

Only way to know for sure would be to try it, but it might make more sense to fix the scripts to deal with multiple cases.

I have a script that runs every minute and does its job 3 times and it doesn't use any noticable power. It would depend on the script and the size of files it has to work with.

[Phree]

Hi Mike,

thanks for your reply I have to say, I tend to agree with what you say about fixing the scripts! However, in the short term, I think I may just give the 20 second CRON a go!

Thanks again.

[PWSowner]

If you have it loop every 20 seconds, make it only 3 times, otherwise a 4th time will be the same time the script is called again, causing it to run twice at the same time.

[Phree]

Cheers - will do