Access variables or functions from other scripts in cron job via cPanel

Background

Hi,

I am new to cron jobs and I am trying to set up a test one just to see how they work. I created it in cPanel like this:

wget -O - -q https://website.com/staging/wp-content/themes/AT103/test-cron.php

My file is pretty simple so far:

<?php

$email_to = "info@domain.com";   
$title = "Test title";    
$body = "Test body";

mail($email_to, $title, $body);

?>

All works fine here, I recieve the email every interval that my cron job runs.

What I want

On my site people can put up ads/listings to sell their stuff. In the cron job I want to go through all listings and email the buyers and sellers for the ones that has expired. As a first step in this I need to access the variables on my website, e.g. a listing object which is put in a variable like $post. Or through a function which returns the stuff I want if easier.

What I tried

I tried to access a random file and its functions by using lots of different code examples found online. The file is in the same folder as my test-cron.php. Here are a few things I tried to put at the top of test-cron.php (one at a time, not all at once):

require '/functions.php';    
require 'https://website.com/staging/wp-content/themes/AT103/functions.php';
require '/home3/username/public_html/staging/wp-content/themes/AT103/functions.php';

This all resulted in the same thing, I did not get an email anymore. So I assume there is some sort of error with the lines? I also tried with require_once() with the same result.

Questions

1. How do I access other scripts ("live" variables or functions) in my folder hierarchy through a cron job?
2. If it is not possible for some reason, can I instead access my database information somehow?

source https://stackoverflow.com/questions/73437252/access-variables-or-functions-from-other-scripts-in-cron-job-via-cpanel