Timeout problem. Completely confused.

Fariel

I've been working on a chat module as a little side project of mine, and i'm having a bit of a problem.

In order to show the 'active users', I've set up a page inside of a frame (refreshing every 5 seconds) that gets the timestamp of the most recent posts, then displays the username of the ones who have posted in the last 5 minutes (300 seconds).

On line 43 (while ($colorarray[$y] != NULL){) and (but more often) line 56 ( if (in_array($current, $used) != TRUE) { ), it gives me the fatal timeout error.

I was wondering if anyone knew why, or if anyone knew a way to optimize the code so it didnt do that.

Thanks,
Fariel

<?

include 'chatconnect.php';

$fiveminutesago = time() - 300;
$query="SELECT * FROM message WHERE usertime > $fiveminutesago";
$result=mysql_query($query);
$num=mysql_numrows($result);



if ($num==0) {
echo "No one is online!?";
} else {
$i=0;

while ($i < $num) {

$user=mysql_result($result,$i,"user");
$usertime=mysql_result($result,$i,"usertime");
$color=mysql_result($result,$i,"color");
include 'messagecolor.php';
$userarray[$i] = $user;
$colorarray[$i] = $color;
$i++;
}

}

$g = 1;
$y=0;

while ($colorarray[$y] != NULL){
if ($g == 1) {
echo "<div id=\"message\" style=\"background-color:".$colorarray[$y]."\" width=\"100%\">".$userarray[$y]."</div>";
$used[$y] = $userarray[$y].$colorarray[$y];
$g++;
$y++;
$current = $userarray[$y].$colorarray[$y];
}
if (in_array($current, $used)) {

}else{
echo "<div id=\"message\" style=\"background-color:".$colorarray[$y]."\" width=\"100%\">".$userarray[$y]."</div>";
$current = $userarray[$next].$colorarray[$next];
$used[$y] = $userarray[$y].$colorarray[$y];
$y++;
}
}

?>

NogDog

My guess is that it's not really that line that is timing out, per se, but rather the [FONT="Courier New"]while($colorarray[$y] != null)[/FONT] loop. I suspect the in_array() comparison is simply more time-consuming than the rest of the commands within that loop, so it is just the most likely spot in the script for the processing to be when it times out. Assuming that's the case, you may need to either increase the timeout value, or look at refactoring that code to find a more efficient means to do whatever you need to do there.

Fariel

Okay, i've played around with it quite a bit and it always seems to time out there.

I guess what I need is a way to add a variable to an array when I use it, and when I display the next row, make sure it isnt already in the array (and if it is, then dont display the row).

Or, to make sure I dont display the same variable more than once.

Any ideas?

leatherback

are trying to find out which colors are already taken by a user? And you want to unset them when people are leaving or something?

Then you coud just create an array, where the colorid is the key, and the value is a user ID. So ONLY if you have a new user (no color assigned yet) you need to check whether the color is set.

If I am completely off, please explain what you try to achieve

Fariel

Yeah, you're off. That's all right.

Okay, im using the colorid and the user id with eachother because more than one user may have the same user id, or more than one person may have the same color.

The code I posted is the code for the 'active users'. It shows the names of the users who have posted in the past five minutes. The problem that I have is when a user has posted more than one time in the past 5 minutes, it shows their name more than once.

I was going to go about solving this problem by checking if their name and colorid is in an array. If it isnt, then display the div with their name and their color as the background, then add their name to the array. If it is, display nothing.

This code then refreshed every 5 seconds to keep it updated.

The problem is, when I go to check the name & color against the array of used names & colors, it times out. It shows the first one (because it adds one to the array, then it starts checking them) but after that it stops & times out.