Retrieving and writing out a large number of records

[arkman]

I'm querying a remote mysql database and retieving a large number of records (600K records with about 12 columns for each record) which I am then writing out to a file on the local machine. I'm having problems with the process timing out, I only get about half of the records, and I'm wondering if there is a better solution then the one I'm using? Either inncreasing the timeout, or better yet by optimizing my code? Mysqldump is not an option for me at this point.

$handle=fopen($filename, 'w+');

//the query
$result = mysql_query("SELECT 1,2,3,4,5 FROM product");

while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {

//write out the results to a file
fwrite($handle, "$row[1]\t$row[2]\t$row[3]\t$row[4]\t$row[5]\n");
}

fclose($handle);

Thanks in advance.

[stewartship]

Do you have to write the results to a file? can you not use arrays (maybe a multidimensional if needed) to store the data and manipulate it on the fly?

[arkman]

No, I need the data written to a file for another application.

[Tracer]

First Debug the script... Set a couple of timers in there to see where/What is taking so long. I.E. time how long it takes to fetch into an array, then how long it takes to write the records to disk.

[arkman]

increasing 'max_execution_time' in php.ini seems to have resolved this problem.