Question

How does PHP4 process endless loops?

Asked by: msa2003

I want to display some value from database in realtime using PHP. Some application connects to the HTTP server and reads the output of my PHP script with the following structure:

<?
header("Content-type: text/plain");
# Connect to database
...
# Endless loop
while (true) {
  sleep(5); # Sleep 5 seconds
  # Execute the database query
  ...
  echo("...\n"); # Echo results
  flush(); # Flush output buffer
}
?>

My configuration is Apache 2.0.52 + php4
What happens when the application closes the TCP connection? Has the script below shutdown correctly? Are the resources allocated for the script instance freed?
The links to the corresponding docs are greatly appreciated.

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Asked On
2005-07-15 at 14:52:27ID21493551
Tags

endless

,

process

,

connection

,

loop

Topic

PHP Scripting Language

Participating Experts
2
Points
250
Comments
4

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Answers

 

by: DanFGPosted on 2005-07-15 at 15:57:38ID: 14455500

msa2003, PHP usually frees any allocated resources automatically when connection times out or is aborted.
You can register functions to take care of freeing resources by using PHP's register_shutdown_function() (http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.register-shutdown-function.php).

Regarding your question, PHP handles endless loops by establishing a time limit for every process. The timeout is usually 30 seconds, it can be set on php.ini or with the set_time_limit() function (http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.set-time-limit.php).

 

by: ZhaawZPosted on 2005-07-15 at 23:39:37ID: 14456577

I think it would be better if your application sended multiple requests (one request each 5 secs) to get data.

 

by: msa2003Posted on 2005-07-16 at 14:08:16ID: 14459378

DanFG: Thank you. Now it is clear for me: when the connection is aborted (by client) or timed out (in the case that the channel fails) the script execution is terminated and all resources (such as database handles) are freed. I can use the PHP's register_shutdown_function() in order to perform some specific action on the script termination. Also I have to use set_time_limit() function to ensure that the script wouldn't terminate eventually (depends on CPU performance) when the script execution time itself (not including sleep, I/O and database access time) exceeds the default 30 seconds. Am I right? Thank you again.

ZhaawZ: Why?

 

by: DanFGPosted on 2005-07-16 at 14:16:17ID: 14459396

Yes you're absolutely right, you're welcome.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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