Timers

[GPhilipp]

Hello

I am writing a script in PHP (and I am not very strong in this :-( ). This script needs to check the status of several items periodically. New items are added constantly and they end constantly.

I was thinking to this with independent timers, but in my research I found:
- PHP does not do multi threading. Therefore I can not run other code during the time the timers run.
- The timer classes I have found are not really timers, they just calculate the elapsed time between start and now.
- i read that having multiple timers run at the same time is not efficient in PHP. But I am not sure how to create 1 timer which is flexible enough to handle upcoming items. I could check through a MySQL table, but time is of the essence in my routine.
- I saw the GTK extension (

http://gtk.php.net/),

but I am not sure if this helps me with what I need. The sample I found looks ok (

http://oops.opsat.net/doc/gtk/gtk-timeout-basic.html).

However, I am not sure if my Host has that extension installed, but they probably would.
What is usually the preferred method/structure to write something like that?

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Gunnar.

 

[feherke]

Hi

PHP does not do multi threading.

The best you can use is [tt]pcntl_fork()[/tt]. Of course, only on Unix. And probably no host will allow its use.

This script needs to check the status of several items periodically.

If you want a web script, your problem is that their execution time is limited. By default to 30 seconds.

I saw the GTK extension (

http://gtk.php.net/),

but I am not sure if this helps me with what I need. [gray](...)[/gray] However, I am not sure if my Host has that extension installed, but they probably would.

GTK is for GUI. If you want a web script, it will not help you. And probably no host will install it.

See if you host allows cron jobs. Or use a free web cron service.


Feherke.

http://free.rootshell.be/~feherke/

 

[GPhilipp]

Hello Feherke

Thank you for your reply and info.

After more discussion with my partner here I found that I don't realy need a 'true' timer. I can use the timer class discribed earlier and when the user on the webpage needs to check it, it just ask the 'wann-be' timer for the time status.

Thanks again for your post.

Gunnar

 

[ingresman]

So you are wanting to write some PHP which will run as an application rather than as a web page?
Is there any reason why you have to do it in PHP?,
What platform are you running on?,
years ago I did some timer work on windows running VB6. That is now way out of support support so you might want to look at the .NET platform

 

[ingresman]

It took me so long to write my reply feherke got in !
So you want to run it as a web page? - good luck !