exiting one script from another

Rahde

I have an irc bot script running through command line on my webserver (using #!/usr/bin/php). Since I set the timeout to 0, it will run continously, until the server goes down. I need to know how to end this script from another script.

ereptur

On Linux:

$getpid = 'ps ax | grep "php ircbot.php" | grep -v "grep" | awk '{print $1}'';
$pid = exec($getpid);
exec("kill -9 $pid");

On Windows, explore the use of a set of tools called pstools, downloadable for free from http://www.sysinternals.com

edit: ok, put "\" before the ' marks in the awk statement. Can't seem to get the board to allow it

zingbats

I would create a system whereby the status is set as either 1 for on, or, 0 for off... then you could create:

<?
if ($status == "1") {
?>
PAGE HTML HERE
<?
} else {
print "script is not on";
}
?>

You could put the "1" or "0" in a text file or database (I recommend database)

ereptur

Zingbats, that wouldn't allow you to kill the process that's running when ever you want, it would just tell you if it is running and then only if the database shows it. That's not a very reliable way to tell. What if your script terminates prematurely and is unable to update its status in the database. Your method would show that the script is running when it's not.

That's why the method I used pulls the information real time. It is the exact same method used in pretty much all Linux scripts for process control.

Rahde

Originally posted by ereptur
On Linux:
$getpid = 'ps ax | grep "php ircbot.php" | grep -v "grep" | awk '{print $1}'';
$pid = exec($getpid);
exec("kill -9 $pid");
On Windows, explore the use of a set of tools called pstools, downloadable for free from http://www.sysinternals.com

edit: ok, put "\" before the ' marks in the awk statement. Can't seem to get the board to allow it [/B]

I can't seem to get that to work. maybe my webhost doesn't allow it?

ereptur

have you just tried that command through the shell (maybe your provider doesn't allow shell access).

This should work just fine under any Linux derivative and most other unices as well.

here is my output so you know what you are looking for

[ereptur@mail ereptur]$ ps ax | grep "bash" | grep -v "grep" | awk '{print $1}'
13317
13359
13360
13361

as you can see, it returns all of the pids that bash is running as. Since your script should only have one invocation, this should only return one pid and therefore be able to pass this to the variable $pid. Using the exec command assures that you don't get other information back from the executed command other than the last line of output (which should be the correct pid number).

If you are using a third-part hosting company, it is also possible that they have disabled the use of the exec command. You may wish to check with them on this.

Weedpacket

Another possibility is to have a wee database (or config file), that both scripts can read. The long-running script checks there regularly to see if the other script has left a flag there that it be terminated. If it has, the long-running script resets the flag and shuts down.

It would mean rewriting the long-running script, of course, but it would have the chance of shutting down cleanly instead of just being killed (in case there's any tidying up to do).