function cron_check_for_updates takes too long to run

[Cecilia Vela Gurovic]

It's unlikely that the mahara.org mahara version will change very often, and we are calling the function cron_check_for_updates constantly (everytime we load a page, when loading a modal, etc) to see if the mahara version has change.

Everytime this function is called when using the site (not by cron job), it executes a mahara_http_request that will take a bit more than 2 seconds, making the mahara instance work slower than it should.

If this data doesn't change that often we can save this value in the $SESSION variable so the mahara_http_request is not being called all the time.

[Mahara Bot (dev-mahara)]

Patch for "master" branch: https://reviews.mahara.org/11029

[Mahara Bot (dev-mahara)]

Reviewed: https://reviews.mahara.org/11029
Committed: https://git.mahara.org/mahara/mahara/commit/d49359dbd3cb4b74e4259f717f011828eb3f0641
Submitter: Robert Lyon (<email address hidden>)
Branch: master

commit d49359dbd3cb4b74e4259f717f011828eb3f0641
Author: Cecilia Vela Gurovic <email address hidden>
Date: Sat Jun 20 19:24:11 2020 +1200

Bug 1884346: adding mahara.org version to SESSION var

behatnotneeded

Change-Id: I05f8b7892d88507e8de74057a4c534c321330d37

[Robert Lyon (robertl-9)]

Ah - I added the check for the mahara manual link - which is on every page ;(

So yep setting this to be a session variable will avoid this and any future places calling that function from doing curl requests too much