PHP Start Background Scripts in either Linux or Windows without waiting for completion

You can start the script with a POST-method request. I don't know if this is limited to *nix systems (I do not use Windows servers) but I find that it works well and enables me to deal with things like external web services that are balky and inconsistent in response time.  

For example, I use the geoio.com service to geo-locate my clients.  It requires a GET request to start it, and sometimes it hangs which makes the elegant simplicity of file_get_contents() useless.  So to solve the problem of the external hang, I make a POST request to my interface script, and then forget about the success or failure of the interface.  The interface makes the GET request to geoio and updates my data base if it succeeds.  And if it fails, I can live with the partially incomplete data, since it is just mapping data for "amusement" purposes, showing here:
http://www.landonbaseball.com/site_visitors.php

The code snippet is a teaching example of how to use cURL for POST requests.

<?php // RAY_curl_post_example.php
error_reporting(E_ALL);


// DEMONSTRATE HOW TO USE CURL POST TO START AN ASYNCHRONOUS PROCESS


function curl_post($url, $post_array=array(), $timeout=2, $error_report=FALSE)
{
    // PREPARE THE POST STRING
    $post_string = NULL;
    foreach ($post_array as $key => $val)
    {
        $post_string .= $key . '=' . urlencode($val) . '&';
    }
    $post_string = rtrim($post_string, '&');

    // PREPARE THE CURL CALL
    $curl = curl_init();
    curl_setopt( $curl, CURLOPT_URL,            $url         );
    curl_setopt( $curl, CURLOPT_HEADER,         FALSE        );
    curl_setopt( $curl, CURLOPT_POST,           TRUE         );
    curl_setopt( $curl, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS,     $post_string );
    curl_setopt( $curl, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT,        $timeout     );
    curl_setopt( $curl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, TRUE         );

    // EXECUTE THE CURL CALL
    $htm = curl_exec($curl);
    $err = curl_errno($curl);
    $inf = curl_getinfo($curl);

    // ON FAILURE
    if (!$htm)
    {
        // PROCESS ERRORS HERE
        if ($error_report)
        {
            echo "CURL FAIL: $url TIMEOUT=$timeout, CURL_ERRNO=$err";
            echo "<pre>\n";
            var_dump($inf);
            echo "</pre>\n";
        }
        curl_close($curl);
        return FALSE;
    }

    // ON SUCCESS
    curl_close($curl);
    return $htm;
}


// USAGE EXAMPLE CREATES ASSOCIATIVE ARRAY OF KEY=>VALUE PAIRS
$args["name"]  = 'Ray';
$args["email"] = 'Ray.Paseur@Gmail.com';

// ACTIVATE THIS TO SEE THE ARRAY OF ARGS
// var_dump($args);

// SET THE URL
$url = "http://LAPRBass.com/RAY_bounce_post.php";

// CALL CURL TO POST THE DATA
$htm = curl_post($url, $args, 3, TRUE);

// SHOW WHAT CAME BACK, IF ANYTHING
if ($htm)
{
    echo "<pre>";
    echo htmlentities($htm);
}
else
{
    echo "NO RESPONSE YET FROM $url -- MAYBE BECAUSE IT IS RUNNING ASYNCHRONOUSLY";
}

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