Threading/forking a PHP script

[karlovac]

I have a PHP script that does a HTTP POST to another server. Remember I'm posting from my server, NOT the browser. The problem is that the page hangs while the response comes back.

Is there a way of telling PHP do do something in the background?

-Antun

[mmilano]

if php is installed as an inturpriter ( sp? ), it can be executed as a script. ./somescript.php

some distros like redhat will have it already setup like that.

you can also execute scripts in your php code with functions like exec() , shell_exec(), passthru() , .. etc...

read more about that here.
http://www.php.net/manual/en/ref.exec.php

hope this helps.

[karlovac]

Is it then possible to pass an argument to that script? It would be a long argument (lots of name/val pairs).

-Antun

Originally posted by mmilano
if php is installed as an inturpriter ( sp? ), it can be executed as a script. ./somescript.php

[karlovac]

Actually I tried a simple test case and this doesn't work at all. PHP waits for the second file to complete. Here's how I tested it:

File 1 [[ test.php ]] (accessed via browser):

<?php

$f = popen( './mailantun.php' , 'w' );
fputs( $f, 'very smelly' );
pclose( $f );

echo 'test';
exit;

?>

File 2 [[ mailantun.php ]] (accessed via popen() from first file):

#!/usr/bin/php
<?php
$myname = 'antun';
$myemail = '[e-mail]';
$contanctname = 'Antun';
$contactemail = '[e-mail]';

$headers .= "MIME-Version: 1.0\r\n";
$headers .= "Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1\r\n";
$headers .= "From: ".$myname." <".$myemail.">\r\n";
$headers .= "To: ".$contactname." <".$contactemail.">\r\n";
$headers .= "Reply-To: ".$myname." <$myreplyemail>\r\n";
$headers .= "X-Priority: 1\r\n";
$headers .= "X-MSMail-Priority: High\r\n";
$headers .= "X-Mailer: Just My Server";

// I'm delaying this on purpose for 5 seconds
sleep( 5 );
mail( $contactemail, 'DEBUG', 'testing...' . $passedval, $headers );
exit;
?>

So I don't think this will work with PHP - might have to try a shell script instead...

-Antun

Originally posted by mmilano
if php is installed as an inturpriter ( sp? ), it can be executed as a script. ./somescript.php