controlling app flow between different scripts in PHP

Question

Hi i have a php script that accepts a POST request as a listener to a web service then process all the data to two final arrays, I'm looking for a way to initiate a second script that GET's those serialized arrays and do some more processing. include() will not be good for me since i actually want to "free" or "end" the first script after passing the data

your help is much appreciated as always :)

EDIT - OK so looks like queue might be the solution! i never did anything like this before any examples or reference?

Answer 1

Does it need to happen immediately? Otherwise you could set up a cronjob that does that every X minutes. You'll have to make some kind of queue in which your first script sticks "requests" to the second script. The cronjob then processes the requests in the queue.

Answer 2

I'd do it all in one request. It cuts down on latency and makes the whole operation more efficient.

Remember you can have a long running request, but still service other requests. Apache will just spawn another php process to handle the other request from the webservice even though the first has not completed. As long as the script doesn't lock a shared resource (database file etc) this will work just fine.

That said, you should use cURL to call the second script. then post the unserialized array. cUrl will handle the rest.

Answer 3

You should get into the habit of writing php scripts that are just a collection of functions (no auto-ran scripts, per se). This way you can include a script file at the top of the script your talking about and then call the function that does what you want.

For instance:

<?php
include('common_functions.php');
$array_1 = whatever_you_do_with_post_values();
$array_2 = other_thing_you_do_with_post_values();
// this function is located in 'common_functions.php'
do_stuff_with_arrays($array_1,$array_2); 
?>

In Fact:

Just to be consistent with what I'm saying:

<?php
include('common_functions.php');
do_your_stuff();
function do_your_stuff() {
    $array_1 = whatever_you_do_with_post_values();
    $array_2 = other_thing_you_do_with_post_values();
    // this function is located in 'common_functions.php'
    do_stuff_with_arrays($array_1,$array_2); 
}
?>

Obviously you should use better function & variable names, haha.

Answer 4

To immediately answer your question, if you pass a GET variable through file_get_contents, the server will process that value as if an outside source had requested it:

file_get_contents( "http://www.example.com/runSomething.php?foo=132" );

In the above example, runSomething.php has now received the information $_GET[ "foo" ] = 123. This is a bit awkward, though. It also will not technically free any resources, you'll now have one script waiting for a response, and another script taking up the same memory which would normally have been used by your original script. That said, you may be spawning another instance of PHP, which could help.

You are much better off if you can encapsulate the functionality into two objects or two functions and then call them in succession. If this is done through oop, you'll be able to call unset to remove the first object from memory.

If this is something which can happen asynchronously, I agree with Bart. cron is very powerful, and, if you're using Linux, you'll even be able to call PHP from the command line so you won't have to learn much beyond what you already know.