Running a Script as a Cron Job

Hello, All

Right! As usual I've had a determined but possibly ham-fisted stab at trying to work out my own problem. This is what I've done (which may explain what I was trying to achieve!)...

Cron runs once a day and executes the following script:

$query = mysql_query("SELECT num, title, etc...);

while( $row = mysql_fetch_assoc($query)){
$new_array[] = $row;
}

$serializedData = serialize($new_array);
file_put_contents('../path/filename.php', $serializedData);

So the script runs a query and outputs the array to a file which is saved on the server.

In my webpage I have the following code which collects the data and feeds it back into another script:

<?php
  $recoveredData = file_get_contents('../path/filename.php');
  $recoveredArray = unserialize($recoveredData);
?>

<?php foreach($recoveredArray as $recovered): ?>
  <?php echo $recovered['title'] ?>
  etc...
<?php endforeach ?>

It seems to work. The question now is, is this the right way to do it? Are there other, better, more secure ways of achieving the same thing?

Perch