How can I prove if wp cron is running my task if I have DISABLE_WP_CRON set to true

Question

I am trying to trigger a wp cron task via a real (linux) server cron and have followed online instructions to add this to wp-config:

define('DISABLE_WP_CRON', true);

My cron job does this :

wget -O - http://www.mysite.co.uk/wp-cron.php?doing_wp_cron=1

I have proved that the server's cron job is working (i receive the cron emails from the server when I remove > /dev/null 2>&1) but am unsure if my actual scheduled task is running. How can I prove this?

Answer 1

I always found that logging cron job execution to a file is very helpful. Otherwise you have no idea if it's working right. Just have your code open a file, write a timestamp, and close.

Something simple like:

 $logfile = $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'].'/CRON.txt';
 $handle = fopen($logfile , 'a') or die('Cannot open file:  '.$logfile );
 $data = 'cron task called at '.date('D, d M Y H:i:s',time())."\n";
 fwrite($handle, $data);
 fclose($handle);