Running PHP process in background

TheDewAddict

Hello everyone,

First, let me just say thanks to all of those who have helped me in the past. While this is my first post, I've found plenty of answers in the past by searching through questions that others have asked. This time however, I can't find exactly what I'm looking for.

Here's the deal, I work on a PHP based menu system for my company. The menu system allows users to run reports, change settings on our Linux box, etc. My problem here is with the reports. Some of them can take 10-15 minutes to run. That's a long time to force the user to sit and watch a "Loading..." screen. What I'd like to do is somehow send the report process to the background.

So far, I've been able to redirect the user's browser to a different page, and let them continue on with the menu. However, as soon as they select another option that requires PHP code (which is about 95% of all options in the menu), the browser will sit there and do nothing until the original PHP process is complete. Here is the code I've been using:

ignore_user_abort(true);

echo <<< html9
   <script language="javascript">

   var thisURL = document.location.href

   {
     var URL = document.location.href;
     var QStr = '';
     URL = URL.toLowerCase();
     if ( URL.indexOf('?') != -1)
       {
       var Idx = URL.indexOf('?');
       var Len = URL.length;
       QStr = URL.substring(Idx, Len);
   }

   {
   var indexnew = (/web/bg.php' + QStr);
   window.location=indexnew
   }
   }

</script>
html9;

flush();

An idea that I've been toying with is popping a new browser window, and then using "session_regenerate_id()" to create a new session id for that window. I could run the process in that window, and then have javascript minimize the window, all the while the original browser window would be free to do whatever. Would this work? If not, how can I go about letting the user continue on in the menu, and not have to wait for the reports to finish?

m_tt

'Some of them can take 10-15 minutes to run.'

Have you tried tweaking the load time? Do you have proper indexes? Do you create 'summary' tables or is everything generated on-the-fly?

Just curious because i've had tables with nearly 10 million rows and they never took nearly that long to generate simple reports.

TheDewAddict

The tables aren't actually run through PHP. I execute a shell script that combines several files, and then I run some custom software that generates the tables and reports. It's specific to the industry that I work in.

Drakla

The closest I've come to solving this is to get php to execute the guts of the script seperately with

define ('NEWSLETTER_COMMAND', 'php newsletter-mailer.php authority=ohplease > /dev/null 2>&1 &');

exec (NEWSLETTER_COMMAND);

I really wish there were a way of telling the script to die as far as the browser is concerned, but keep on doing its funky thing.

TheDewAddict

Originally posted by Drakla
The closest I've come to solving this is to get php to execute the guts of the script seperately with
define ('NEWSLETTER_COMMAND', 'php newsletter-mailer.php authority=ohplease > /dev/null 2>&1 &');

exec (NEWSLETTER_COMMAND);
I really wish there were a way of telling the script to die as far as the browser is concerned, but keep on doing its funky thing. [/B]

So far, this isn't working. What is the "authority=ohplease" statement? I've not seen that before.

Drakla

he he - sorry, that's how you pass $_GET values to the child script - pairs of key=value separated by spaces, not &. And if you need to you can also put in PHPSESSED=04320hg0qeg to get your current session passed across if there's data the child script might need (use session_write_close before calling in the parent script). I put the authority thing in so that somebody who just stumbles on the script on the server can't just click it and it'll send 160 thousand emails.

Note to anyone trying this on Windows - passing the PHPSESSID, or trying to use session_id($value) before session start in the child script makes the child process hang, but works fine on Nixxy.

stevesweetland

i do a load of reporting stuff for a financial company, for a set of reports which are really complex, i run a cron job.

they submit a request for the report, and there are 3 jobs that run (rotated around an hour) one to pick up the request and to submit a set of tasks for the next job...

the next job picks up the sets of tasks, and saves these into html files into a handy folder, saving the file names into the database where the request is

the third job collects all the completed tasks, attaches them to an email, and sends that email to the user who requested the report.

it works brilliant, and it would probably be good for what you do.

took a while to get working right, mind.

TheDewAddict

Originally posted by Drakla
The closest I've come to solving this is to get php to execute the guts of the script seperately with
define ('NEWSLETTER_COMMAND', 'php newsletter-mailer.php authority=ohplease > /dev/null 2>&1 &');

exec (NEWSLETTER_COMMAND);
I really wish there were a way of telling the script to die as far as the browser is concerned, but keep on doing its funky thing. [/B]

I finally got this to work! Thanks for your help, and everyone else, thanks for your help as well!!!