Starting a process ...

[jstraa]

I'm trying to write a mailing list application for our forums,
however I want to make a function to start mailing thousands
of people(don't worry, no spam)

This is how the process should look like

Start
Trigger mail sending
Return message in browser process has been started

The script doesn't have to wait untill the process is done,
has anyone have an idea how to trigger this without
waiting for the sending to be completed?

Kind regards,

Jeroen

[dankstick]

This may be a trick, but it may work...
You have to have the mail-sending alone in a file though, this means when PHP runs the file it goes ahead and sends the mail...you may want to save this in /home/whatever or in some other non-web-accessible place...

exec("php /home/myself/send_mail.php");
echo "The mail is being sent right now!!";

This way Apache is doing the dirty work behind the scenes and the web user sees a response immediately.

I was thinking you could do...

send_mail_now_function();
Header("Location: done_sending_mail.php");

But this may end the function, I don't know....