Weather Display Conditions Messenger PHP Script

No problem, I was tinkering with the script till about 3am lol. Since i am a night owl all the time. and was tweaking the settings. Just have to watch for the longest one of them all i seen so far and that is the: Night Time/Dry/Cloudy with clear patches

Version: 1.03 - 17-Jul-2009 - improved shorten_twitter function

  • added configurable array of shorten_twitter words to settings.
  • changed current condition variable to use $Currentsolardescription instead of $weathercond,
    this can be reversed on about line 256:
// uncomment only one of these two condition tags
$sCond = $Currentsolardescription; // current condition: Dry/Cloudy
//$sCond = $weathercond;           // current condition: Dry

Mike works great here. Love the idea for the lines to strip anything that is above 140 for twitter.
As for the email via text to a cell phone took notice they also have a limit. So i used what you had in there and have the email set for 120 chars. So both work.

Version: 1.03 - 17-Jul-2009

OK Albert, thanks for the suggestion.

Version: 1.04 - 17-Jul-2009 - shorten_twitter function changed to a shorten_message function that can shorten emails and twitters

  • added two more settings:
    // number of characters to attempt to shorten twitter message to
    $twitter_shorten = ‘140’;

// number of characters to attempt to shorten email message to
$email_shorten = ‘120’;

You way was cleaner than mine lol.

Did notice that the Cloudy with clear patches still shows up. But i was working on it, when it went overcast just my luck lol. and noticed that it adds a extra space after the $sCond, so you end up with Cloudy with clear patches , Temp.

Also in the Array you have ‘Night Time/’ => ‘’, twice is this correct? wasn’t sure.
Also seen that it seems wd is adding it’s own little space in there, as i did have $sCond, in there and now with a update shows Night Time/Dry/mostly cloudy - , Temp 61F

Yea i like tinkering with things. and i am up 1/2 the night lol

The night time was in there twice because one has a capital T and one does not.

Version: 1.05 - 17-Jul-2009 - trim spaces from current conditions

ok left the script as is to check still get that extra space from wd: cloudy -, Temp

Checking the testtags.php shows: $Currentsolardescription = 'Night Time/Dry/mostly cloudy - ';

put this line in the $shorten_words_array
‘mostly cloudy -’ => ‘Cldy’,

Ok mike that works. I will keep an eye out for any of the tags and what they are. and add them in one by one. I am sure there are a few there.

Version: 1.06 - 19-Jul-2009 - added email Bcc feature

Version: 1.07 - 22-Jul-2009 - added post authentication feature.
Now you can edit your cron job to use CURL and pass a username and password
so that the script can be in public view and it only emails when called from your cron job with the correct username and password.
This is the best way to allow the script to be in public and have the most accurate cron times, such as I use: every hour
This is a sample of my cron: (be sure to set your_username and your_password)
curl -d ‘username=your_username&password=your_password’ http://www.642weather.com/weather/wd-conditions-messenger.php >/dev/null 2>&1

I figured out how to send my tweets to Facebook. This is how:
Log into Facebook and go to this app:
http://www.facebook.com/selectivetwitter
Click settings and add your Twitter username, then grant permissions.
End a tweet with #fb when you want it to update your Facebook status - simple.

I made a Facebook page for 642weather, then made a personal profile for myself, I am the admin of the page now.
Pages and profiles are two different things.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Long-Beach-Weather-Long-Beach-Washington-98631-USA/102474670891?ref=nf

Thanks, it works beautifully, and so easy.
Al

Hi Mike!
Actually this application sent weather condictions (in twitter and FB) every one hour. Is it possibile to set it every 6 hours?
Thanks in advance,

Alessandro

Just change the cron schedule
http://slavi.biz/blog/how-to-run-a-cron-job-every-6-hours-2009-02-10.html

#-o
Cheers,

Alessandro

Mike,

I have tested your great script. It works well. I can’t seem to get my cron to work. Do you see anything wrong?

0,15,30,45 * * * * php trajnet/wdl/wd-conditions-messenger.php5 2>&1 > /dev/null

I have similar crons in the the cron.txt file and they are working, so I can’t figure out why this isn’t. Any advice is appreciated.

Traj

try to run this manually and make sure it works, then work on cron if still needed.
wd-conditions-messenger.php5

Thanks Mike. The script definitely works for me, twitter, facebook and all. I’ll keep at the cron.