[RESOLVED] Interaction between two running PHP scripts

DaveRandom

So I have written this neat little daemon script in PHP to do some very boring housekeeping on some very boring files on a server. Then I turned it into a Windows service using the PECL win32service CVS package, and functions contained therein. Now I want to tell that service what to do. Is this possible?

Put another way, if two people were loading a page from a HTTP server at the same time, is there any way to make those two scripts running on those two open connections talk to each other?

I can obviously bounce data through a DB of some kind, but this would mean constantly polling the DB for changes (I am using MySQL at the moment) and this puts a lot of unnecessary stress on the host machine. What I want is to send a message directly from one script to another.

P.S. Yes, I am aware that PHP is not the best language for doing this, but you work with what you've got...

NogDog

Maybe you could use shared memory (shmop) to pass messages to it?

DaveRandom

Nice idea except: from PHP manual

Under Windows, Shmop will only work when PHP is running as a web server module, such as Apache or IIS (CLI and CGI will not work).

Correct me if i'm wrong (which I may be) but I think the way that i'm executing the script is effectively using the CLI. I have been unable to get shmop to work so far after a tertiary mess about with it...

NogDog

Bummer. I don't suppose switching to Linux is an option? 😉 (I've never worked with shmop, just knew it existed and might possibly be a tool you could use.)

DaveRandom

I could do it with a Linux VM I suppose, but that would eat up even more system resources I suspect.

Annoyingly I think I might have to rewrite it in some flavour of .NET, it is starting to look as if that is my only option to do what I need on a Windows platform.

DaveRandom

All rewritten as a Perl CGI and sorted. Cheers anyway peeps 😃

CoderDan

DaveRandom;10921680 wrote:
So I have written this neat little daemon script in PHP to do some very boring housekeeping on some very boring files on a server. Then I turned it into a Windows service using the PECL win32service CVS package, and functions contained therein. Now I want to tell that service what to do. Is this possible?

Put another way, if two people were loading a page from a HTTP server at the same time, is there any way to make those two scripts running on those two open connections talk to each other?

I can obviously bounce data through a DB of some kind, but this would mean constantly polling the DB for changes (I am using MySQL at the moment) and this puts a lot of unnecessary stress on the host machine. What I want is to send a message directly from one script to another.

P.S. Yes, I am aware that PHP is not the best language for doing this, but you work with what you've got...

Not sure what you mean by 'constantly polling mysql' - would only need to be checked each time the script is run, same as when you check wherever you check.
Think of it outside a DB, dumbing it down to a flat file.
You have one flat file, lets call it 'fake_shared_memory.txt'. Each time the script runs, it opens the file, reads/writes, and closes it. no matter who runs the script, it always uses the same file. Of course there's transactional issues, If one person runs the script and is at the point where the file is opened and read, but before it is written and closed, a second person runs the script, and opens and reads the file, I guess, but back into a DB with transactional qualities, and you've no problems again.

DaveRandom

The problem that I had is that the status of this system is changing very frequently, with a large number of files accumulating very very quickly (like, several a second), and a very limited amout of space to keep them in, with only a select few being worth keeping. This meant the script needed to be run every few seconds.

I have now re-written this with a VB backend that is triggered by a change in state of the root folder, with a Perl CGI to tell it what to do, and compiled in .NET, all working, sorted. Easy(ish)... 😃