PHP - Parallel processing

Question

I'm working on a web application that needs to send a lot of HTTP requests and update the table, this will block the PHP from executing. So I though I might have to write a separate PHP script and run it via my main application. I tried Exec but still the program waits until the script is executed.

exec('php do_job.php');

I even tried redirecting the output to a file as PHP.Net suggests:

Note: If a program is started with this function, in order for it to continue running in the background, the output of the program must be redirected to a file or another output stream. Failing to do so will cause PHP to hang until the execution of the program ends.

$result = exec('php do_job.php > output.txt &',$output);

But still no success ... Further down the same page I came accross this:

$command = 'php do_job.php';
$shell = new COM("WScript.Shell");
$shell->run($command, 0, false);

Still no sucess ... Lastly I tried:

pclose(popen("start /B ". $command, "r"));

What am I doing wrong here?

I'm developing my app on localhost (XAMPP - Windows), later I'll be releasing it on a Linux host. My last resort would be to run the script via CRON jobs. Is this the only way?

1. "send a lot of HTTP requests and update the table" <- elaborate. 2. pivotallabs.com/preemptive-optimization — Sammitch
– Sammitch, Commented May 8, 2014 at 16:43
3. Use InnoDB,it has row-level locking instead of myISAM's table-level garbage. — Sammitch
– Sammitch, Commented May 8, 2014 at 16:49
"send a lot of HTTP requests and update the table" -> I have a bunch of user IDs, I need to call an API for every ID to obtain the information and then update my table. Those API calls will take time, not the saving ... — Ali.B
– Ali.B, Commented May 8, 2014 at 17:06

Harikrishnan · Accepted Answer · 2014-05-09 04:18:05Z

2

By just adding & at the end of command you can run any command in background. Here I'm redirecting o/p to /dev/null to avoid hang(For Linux).

exec('php do_job.php > /dev/null &');

If you want see the o/p of the command you can redirect it to a file.

exec('php do_job.php > full_path_to_file &');

edited May 9, 2014 at 4:18

answered May 8, 2014 at 16:52

Harikrishnan

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6 Comments

lafor Over a year ago

Except OP is on Windows.

Ali.B Over a year ago

I don't suppose this works on Windows: exec('php do_job.php > output.txt &');

Ali.B Over a year ago

Do I need to enable any particular PHP extension?

Harikrishnan Over a year ago

No..Also exec function will be enabled by default in XAMPP/WAMP

Ali.B Over a year ago

It's amazing ... I'm running the same code as above but the script hangs until the exec is done ...

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