PHP running Python script - not waiting for Python script to finish

apw235

Hey -

Running these on a Linux server with PHP 5 and Python 2.5.

My problem is this: I have a simple php form that executes a long (~3 minutes) Python script using the 'exec' function from php. The issue is that the browser, I think, 'times out' before the Python script is finished and therefore kills Python and displays no output from Python. After some intense googling, I haven't found an answer, but I found a potential solution that I really want to avoid (manually opening a process that runs in the background, and checking its status until it is complete, then refreshing the web page). I'd much rather find an easier way to do this, and thus I am asking for help either way. If my only option is to open a job and monitor its status, could someone help guide me through coding this? I've tried naïvely doing exec("/path/to/executable arg1 arg2 >> /path/to/logfile 2>&1 &") but it seems as though even this dies when the browser times out. Thanks!

-Adrian

scrupul0us

could be php... whats the value of [man]set_time_limit[/man]

apw235

Hey -

Taken from the PHP manual:

Note: The set_time_limit() function and the configuration directive max_execution_time only affect the execution time of the script itself. Any time spent on activity that happens outside the execution of the script such as system calls using system(), stream operations, database queries, etc. is not included when determining the maximum time that the script has been running.

Another strange thing - say my python code looks like this:

import sys
import os

thisPID = os.getpid()
print thisPID

RADeg = float(sys.argv[1])
decDeg = float(sys.argv[2])
clipSizeDeg = float(sys.argv[3])

ic.myFunction(RAdeg, decDeg, clipSizeDeg)

os.system(SOME LONG COMMAND)

for i in os.listdir(blah):
	os.system("gunzip BLAH")

If I throw random print statements in there, say like this:

import sys
import os

thisPID = os.getpid()
print thisPID

print "1"

RADeg = float(sys.argv[1])
decDeg = float(sys.argv[2])
clipSizeDeg = float(sys.argv[3])

print "2"

ic.myFunction(RAdeg, decDeg, clipSizeDeg)

print "3"

os.system(SOME LONG COMMAND)

print "4"

for i in os.listdir(blah):
     print i
     os.system("gunzip BLAH")

It prints all of these numbers from the print statements, but doesn't execute the rest of the code - the stuff that I actually want it to do...any ideas?