Hello all,

Can anyone please guide / help me in the following task....

I have a directory where some external users will upload pdf files. The filename of these pdf will be of a particular format (<id>-<first name>_<last name>_<some number>.pdf)
I want to make a script such that it takes (splits) the id from the filename and query the mysql database for the email address of that id (this can be done from a php script also) and then email on that particular id. Also this script has to run periodically (many times in a day...this can be done from cron).

I need some guidance on how to go about this.....whether this can be done from a shell script or php script and some help with the commands if shell script. My knowledge on PHP also is not very good, so if there are any inputs for using php then just guide me along.

Thanks....

Something like this?

cd $UPLOAD_DIRECTORY
find . -type f -newer timestamp -name "*.pdf" -print | 
   awk -F- { print $1 } | 
   while read id ; do 
        email_user_by_id $id
   done

touch timestamp

  /usr/sbin/sendmail -t  <<EOF
From: "The system" <otheus@xxxx.com>
To: $email
Subject: Your PDF file was received

blah blah blah
EOF

Hey otheus thanks for the reply....
I took some points from your reply and from few searches in the forum got it working...
here is my script -

#!/bin/bash

UPLOAD_DIR="/home/xyz/test"
REPORT_DIR="/home/xyz"
UNAME="xyz"
PASS="xyz"
DB="xyz"
URL="http://www.xyz.com/pdf/"

cd $UPLOAD_DIR

for FILENAME in *.pdf
do
	USER_ID=`echo $FILENAME | cut -d "-" -f1`	
	EMAIL_TO=`echo $(mysql -u $UNAME -p$PASS $DB -e "select email from <tablename> where user_id=$USER_ID") | cut -d " " -f2`
	#echo "Send email to $EMAIL_TO"
	BODY="blah blah blah"
	#echo $BODY
	mv $FILENAME $REPORT_DIR
	/usr/sbin/sendmail -t  <<EOF
	From: a@b.com
	To: $EMAIL_TO
	Subject: <subject>
	Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii
	$BODY
	EOF
done

1 * * * * /home/xyz/script.sh

Your cron will run once an hour, at one minute past the hour. To run every minute you need:

* * * * * /home/xyz/script.sh

and what if i would like to run it every 5 minutes?

read your crontab's man page for that.

Hey Thanks.....got it done as

*/5 * * * * /home/xyz/script.sh