How can PHP interact with a MySQL database to retrieve time-sensitive information for cron jobs?

To retrieve time-sensitive information for cron jobs, PHP can interact with a MySQL database by querying the database for the relevant data based on the current time or a specific time range. This can be achieved by using PHP's MySQLi or PDO extension to connect to the database, execute SQL queries to fetch the necessary data, and process the results accordingly.

<?php
// Connect to MySQL database
$servername = "localhost";
$username = "username";
$password = "password";
$dbname = "database_name";
$conn = new mysqli($servername, $username, $password, $dbname);

// Check connection
if ($conn->connect_error) {
    die("Connection failed: " . $conn->connect_error);
}

// Retrieve time-sensitive information from MySQL database
$current_time = date('Y-m-d H:i:s');
$sql = "SELECT * FROM table_name WHERE start_time <= '$current_time' AND end_time >= '$current_time'";
$result = $conn->query($sql);

if ($result->num_rows > 0) {
    // Process the retrieved data
    while($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {
        // Perform actions based on the retrieved data
    }
} else {
    echo "No time-sensitive information found.";
}

// Close database connection
$conn->close();
?>