How Can I Run a Long-Running PHP Script in the Background After a Form Submission?

How to Run a PHP Script in the Background after a Form Submission

Problem Scenario

Consider a form that processes submitted information, inserts it into a database, and sends notifications to a list of subscribers. However, due to the number of subscribers (around 150), the process takes a significant amount of time (over a minute). This causes users to experience a delay and potential issues:

• Users may repeatedly submit the form, leading to duplicate or failed submissions.
• Users may prematurely close the page or browser, causing the server to continue running the script while the browser disconnects.

Solution: Separating Email Notifications

To address this, the email notification portion of the script should be separated into a distinct file. However, running this file as a background task is essential to eliminate the user's need for interaction.

Running a PHP Script in the Background

To run a PHP script as a background service, an external process must be invoked using either exec or shell_exec.

Using shell_exec

Using shell_exec allows for logging of the notification process. The following command will achieve the desired functionality:

shell_exec("/path/to/php /path/to/send_notifications.php '".$post_id."' 'alert' >> /path/to/alert_log/paging.log &");

The & character at the end of the command indicates that the process should run in the background.

Additional Notes

• The extra variables (surrounded by single quotes) after the script path are accessible through the $_SERVER['argv'] array within the background script.
• The output of the background script is appended to a log file using the >> operator.

The above is the detailed content of How Can I Run a Long-Running PHP Script in the Background After a Form Submission?. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!