can php listen to socket for 24hrs?help!

[Anon]

hi can php listen to a socket connection for 24hrs supposing the port has already been fixed? then is it possible that when it receives data it executes processes it and when its done continues listening?
need urgent help on this. thanks to all!!

[dannys]

I don't see a problem with it. I've been doing that sort of thing recently, though only for a few hours not 24, but I didn't see any reason for it not to work.

Best thing to do is try it and see 🙂

[[deleted]]

Sure it's possible.

But if you are on unix you should try using the inetd, thats much cleaner, especially if the script doesn't handle a lot of traffic.

[kparker]

How does inetd communicate the open port to the server it starts? stdin/stdout? or something else?

[[deleted]]

Inetd listens for connectons on sockets.
Whenever a connection comes in on a certain port, inetd looksup which script/program should be started.
That script/program is then started and it's stdin/stdou is coupled to the socket.
That way the script/program can use stdin/stdout to talk through the socket.

That means you don't have to F-about with php's socket stuff at all, which is nice :-)