Asynchronous script

[Aegidius]

If I had an heavy script, and I don't need to see the script result, can I execute that in background and let the user to continue vising the site, without waiting until the script is done?

[JKG]

is this a stupid suggestion:

place in an iframe at the bottom of page, with styling to display:none

 

that way all the html would be processed the user would see the page, and the script, however long would be out of site out of mind...

[Aegidius]

Really thanks for the answer.

 

That's a solution, but is there any other one more elegance?

[fugix]

can I ask what the purpose of the script running in the background is?

[Aegidius]

I have an heavy script to be executed.

 

If I put the code as main script the user will see a loading blank page for a while, until he can keep to navigate the site.

 

I'd like that the main script throw a background script that execute the heave code, while the user can keep to navigate the site.

[fugix]

but what does the "heavy code" do?

[Aegidius]

Database stuff and email stuff.

 

Why? Is there no any way to throw a background script?

[fugix]

you could launch a background process

function launchBackgroundProcess($call) {
     // Windows
    if(is_windows()){
        pclose(popen(’start /b ‘.$call.”, ‘r’));
    }
     // Some sort of UNIX
    else {
        pclose(popen($call.‘ /dev/null &’, ‘r’));
    }
    return true;
}

function is_windows(){
    if(PHP_OS == ‘WINNT’ || PHP_OS == ‘WIN32′){
        return true;
    }
    return false;
}

 

[fugix]

this is another method...which launches a new instance of the PHP interpreter as a backgounrd process..

exec ("/usr/bin/php path/to/script.php >/dev/null &");

 

[Aegidius]

Ok, really thanks. I'll try.

 

Do you know if there is any way to throw an asynchronous script like you do in ajax?

[fugix]

this function will submit an asynchronous POST query to the specified url

function backgroundPost($url){
  $parts=parse_url($url);

  $fp = fsockopen($parts['host'], 
          isset($parts['port'])?$parts['port']:80, 
          $errno, $errstr, 30);

  if (!$fp) {
      return false;
  } else {
      $out = "POST ".$parts['path']." HTTP/1.1\r\n";
      $out.= "Host: ".$parts['host']."\r\n";
      $out.= "Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded\r\n";
      $out.= "Content-Length: ".strlen($parts['query'])."\r\n";
      $out.= "Connection: Close\r\n\r\n";
      if (isset($parts['query'])) $out.= $parts['query'];

      fwrite($fp, $out);
      fclose($fp);
      return true;
  }
}

//Example of use
backgroundPost('http://example.com/slow.php?file='.
                       urlencode('some file.dat'));

 

should work for ya

 

[Aegidius]

Thank you very much!

 

I'll try and I'll let you know.

 

Thanks again.

[fugix]

no problem..any trouble let me know

[trq]

@fugix, you are load to post links to scripts if you think they'll help a user out.

 

eg; http://w-shadow.com/blog/2007/10/16/how-to-run-a-php-script-in-the-background/

[fugix]

okay, thank you

[Aegidius]

I have come to think that the best way to lunch a background script is with AJAX.