Re: Startinga shell process with a life of its own

On Thu, July 6, 2006 9:29 pm, John Gunther wrote: > Which PHP method allows me to start a shell process from a web page > script and let it proceed to its conclusion even though I end the > page. > Most of the various execute functions seem to wait for the process to > finish before PHP continues. I don't understand the ones with > open/close > functions. Will opening a process and failing to close it let it run > after the page ends? Will failing to close cause other problems? Can > you > point me to example code? The shell commands I want to run are > typically > themselves PHP programs whose execution time is far too long to > complete > in a browser context. On some machines, on some OSes, in some configurations, with some commands, tacking "&" onto the end of what you exec, will sometimes "work"... I would recommend, however, that you re-structure things slightly so that the Architecture is more like this: User visits web page. Page generates a database record of what needs to be done. Page finished. CRON JOB: Look in task list of what needs doing, and do some of them. Make sure only one job is done at a time, or whatever race conditions are handled here. I've done projects both ways, and always end up frustrated with the "PHP attempts to background a process" and the "Task List + Cron" always works out far far better. -- Like Music? http://l-i-e.com/artists.htm