shell_exec - asynchronous would be cool!

Hi all, A while ago, i had a problem with shell_exec: I was writing some code to execute imagemagick to convert a bunch of images. This could take ages to execute and the page therefore ages to load. The solution was to get a linux box and append a & at the end to do it in the background or make a ajax call to a page that does it in batches. The problem was really that i had to write a file that is then checked against to know when it was finished... Not very pretty. Anyway, would it be possible to make a "new" shell_exec_async function in php that just starts the process, puts it to the background and calls a callback function or another script with parameters when it finishes? I guess a callback function is not really going to work because the page needs to finish execution. It should be possible with PHP forking though. Anyway, just an idea. Regards, Tim Tim-Hinnerk Heuer http://www.ihostnz.com Emo Philips - "I was the kid next door's imaginary friend."