How reliable is pcntl support?

Good day, I've recently had a need to write a standalone script that needs to fork off a number of children during its operation, and I'd like to use PHP since I've already written most of the functions in a web application I did in PHP. But, I'm now not so sure if that's feasible. According to the docco, process control is supplied by the "pcntl" module which isn't compiled into PHP by default (and doesn't appear to be compiled into the 4.1.2 Red Hat RPMs that are on the machine). The documentation also describes it as "experimental", although that could just be old documentation... The program would be a production system... before I proceed trying to recompile support in, could I get some feedback on just how reliable it is? Should I be trying to do this in another language instead? Thanks in advance, ============================ Darren Gamble Planner, Regional Services Shaw Cablesystems GP 630 - 3rd Avenue SW Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2P 4L4 (403) 781-4948