Splitting PHP script to avoid timeout

Question

I have the following script which is used to PDF some pages on a website:

<? 
    include_once('phpToPDF.php') ; 
    phptopdf_url( 'http://www.example.com/csb04-termination-box/?style=alt' ,'pdf/', 'csb04-termination-box.pdf'); 
    phptopdf_url( 'http://www.example.com/csb05-termination-box/?style=alt' ,'pdf/', 'csb05-termination-box.pdf');  
    phptopdf_url( 'http://www.example.com/csb06-compact-termination-box/?style=alt' ,'pdf/', 'csb06-compact-termination-box.pdf');
    echo 'Done';
?>

The problem I have is if I add many more pages the server times out before the script has finished running. I've tried changing set_time_limit(0); but that hasn't helped (on shared hosting).

What would be the best way to amend the script so it can finish? I considered trying to split it in to multiple scripts and running it via ajax but not sure where to start with that as have no prior experience with it.

Answer 1

The easiest way to do it would be this :

include_once('phpToPDF.php') ; 
$i = isset($_GET['i']) ? intval($_GET['i']) : 0;

if ($i == 0) phptopdf_url( 'http://www.example.com/csb04-termination-box/?style=alt' ,'pdf/', 'csb04-termination-box.pdf'); 
if ($i == 1) phptopdf_url( 'http://www.example.com/csb05-termination-box/?style=alt' ,'pdf/', 'csb05-termination-box.pdf');  
if ($i == 2) phptopdf_url( 'http://www.example.com/csb06-compact-termination-box/?style=alt' ,'pdf/', 'csb06-compact-termination-box.pdf');

if ($i < 3) header('Location: ?i=' . ($i + 1));
echo 'Done';

Basically this lets your webbrowser do the counting, without using Ajax. When one request is done, the browser automatically loads the next page, until the counter ($i) is at 3.

Answer 2

Use the following script to process all your files, one at a time:

include_once('phpToPDF.php') ; 

$urls = array();
$urls[] = array('http://www.example.com/csb04-termination-box/?style=alt', 'csb04-termination-box.pdf');
$urls[] = array('http://www.example.com/csb05-termination-box/?style=alt', 'csb05-termination-box.pdf');
$urls[] = array('http://www.example.com/csb06-termination-box/?style=alt', 'csb06-termination-box.pdf');
// add here more elements in $urls if needed

if(!isset($_GET['n']))
    $n = 0;
else
    $n = intval($_GET['n']);

if(isset($urls[$n]))
{
    phptopdf_url($urls[$n][0] ,'pdf/', $urls[$n][1]); 
    header('Location: ?n='.($n+1)); // calls the conversion of the next file in the $urls array
}
else
    echo 'Done';