PHP using proc_open so that it doesn't wait for the script it opens (runs) to finish?

Question

I've spent a while on this but can't get this to work, I apologize as I asked a somewhat related question about this earlier but deleted it so I could do more research to narrow down the question, at this point I am stuck as I thought I had the solution with this but its not working as I expect.. I found a forum where someone asked a similar question and they gave code like below, which I am trying.. it does run the script, but it still waits for it to finish before going to the next line in the PHP code

    proc_close(proc_open ("/var/www/other_scripts/perl/apps/emails_extract_from_url.pl \"$stoopid\"", array(), $foo));

Colossian

Answer 1

Some of my code when i played around with proc_open
I had issues with proc_close (10 to 30 seconds) so i just killed the process using linux command kill

$options=array();
$option['sleep-after-destroy']=0;
$option['sleep-after-create']=0;
$option['age-max']=40;
$option['dir-run']=dirname(__FILE__);
$option['step-sleep']=1;
$option['workers-max']=(int)file_get_contents($maxworkers_file);
$option['destroy-forcefull']=1;

$workers=array();

function endAWorker($i,$cansleep=true) {
        global $workers;
        global $option;
        global $child_time_limit;
        if(isset($workers[$i])) {
                @doE('Ending worker [['.$i.']]'."\n");
                if($option['destroy-forcefull']==1) {
                        $x=exec('ps x | grep "php check_working_child.php '.$i.' '.$child_time_limit.'" | grep -v "grep" | grep -v "sh -c"');
                        echo 'pscomm> '.$x."\n";
                        $x=explode(' ',trim(str_replace("\t",' ',$x)));
                        //print_r($x);
                        if(is_numeric($x[0])) {
                                $c='kill -9 '.$x[0];
                                echo 'killcommand> '.$c."\n";
                                $x=exec($c);
                        }
                }
                @proc_close($workers[$i]['link']);
                unset($workers[$i]);
        }
        if($cansleep==true) {
                sleep($option['sleep-after-destroy']);
        }
}

function startAWorker($i) {
        global $workers;
        global $option;
        global $child_time_limit;

        $runcommand='php check_working_child.php '.$i.' '.$child_time_limit.' > check_working_child_logs/'.$i.'.normal.log';
        doE('Starting [['.$i.']]: '.$runcommand."\n");
        $workers[$i]=array(
                'desc' => array(
                        0 => array("pipe", "r"),
                        1 => array("pipe", "w"),
                        2 => array("file", 'check_working_child_logs/'.$i.'.error.log', "a")
                        ),
                'pipes'                 => null,
                'link'                  => null,
                'start-time'    => mktime()
                );
        $workers[$i]['link']=proc_open(
                $runcommand,
                $workers[$i]['desc'],
                $workers[$i]['pipes'],
                $option['dir-run']
                );
        sleep($option['sleep-after-create']);
}

function checkAWorker($i) {
        global $workers;
        global $option;
        $temp=proc_get_status($workers[$i]['link']);
        if($temp['running']===false) {
                doE('Worker [['.$i.']] finished'."\n");
                if(is_file('check_working_child_logs/'.$i.'.normal.log') && filesize('check_working_child_logs/'.$i.'.normal.log')>0) {
                        doE('--------'."\n");
                        echo file_get_contents('check_working_child_logs/'.$i.'.normal.log');
                        doE('-------'."\n");
                }
                endAWorker($i);
        } else {
                if($option['age-max']>0) {
                        if($workers[$i]['start-time']+$option['age-max']$v) {
                endAWorker($i,false);
        }
        @doE('Done killing workers.'."\n");
}

register_shutdown_function('endAllWorkers');

while(1) {
        $step++;
        foreach($workers as $index=>$v) {
                checkAWorker($index);
        }
        if(count($workers)==$option['workers-max']) {
        } elseif(count($workers)$option['workers-max']) {
                $wl=array_keys($workers);
                $wl=array_pop($wl);
                doE('Killing worker [['.$wl.']]');
                endAWorker($wl[0]);
        }
}

Jube

yeah I had the same issue which was throwing me off as my PHP script actually wasn't waiting, I just thought it was since the perl script that was supposed to finish was still running... it seems that doing a command line kill is a good way to go – Colossian

doe() actually does an echo, forgot the function. – Jube

Answer 2

Hey i've been using proc_open alot lately and it never waits for it to finish before moving on. Make sure you specify the pipes and not just use an empty array()

$descriptorspec = array(
   0 => array("pipe", "r"),  // stdin is a pipe that the child will read from
   1 => array("pipe", "w"),  // stdout is a pipe that the child will write to
   2 => array("file", "/tmp/error-output.txt", "a") // stderr is a file to write to
);

and also assign proc_open to a variable.

$myProc = proc_open("/var/www/other_scripts/perl/apps/emails_extract_from_url.pl \"$stoopid\"", $descriptorspec , $foo)

You can then get the status of your process by using proc_get_status($myProc);

More information here http://au.php.net/proc_open

More Information on closing.

$temp = fgets($this->open_pipes[$thread_id][1], 1024);
if($this->checkFinishedThread($thread_id))
{
    fclose($this->open_pipes[$thread_id][1]);
    proc_close($thread);
}

function checkFinishedThread($thread_id)
{
    $test = stream_get_meta_data($this->open_pipes[$thread_id][1]);
    if($test['eof'] == 1)
        return true;
    return false;
}

Actinochemistry

Thanks, will check into that.. I was just going by a post where the guy said to do it just like that and it should work, so I will modify it as you suggested – Colossian

UPDATE: I have tried exactly what you posted, but it is still waiting for the script it calls to finish, i am finding this bizarre.. I am using PHP with apache (so I'm calling it from a web browser), so I don't know if that would affect it somehow – Colossian

hmm, it might. I normally use this when running on the command line. But in saying that i'm sure i've doneit in a browser aswell and it has worked. Can you post the whole script in your post? – Actinochemistry

ozatomic can you tell what version of php and os you tested it on and it worked? For me it hangs at proc_close for alot of time under ubuntu and centos in command line, apache and lighttpd. – Jube

Yeah i've had this happen to me aswell. The way i go around this was to run a check before i close it. I have updated my answer to include the information. – Actinochemistry

Answer 3

You need an ampersnad (&) at the end of your command line argument:

proc_close(proc_open ("/var/www/other_scripts/perl/apps/emails_extract_from_url.pl \"$stoopid\" & ", array(), $foo)); 

Diwan