Question

Didn’t see a question similar to this, so here goes:

Let’s say I’m running a cron script, and it has the potential to run out of memory (64M) or time (30 seconds). Is there a way for the script to detect this and restart itself, or redirect to itself?

Answer 1

I’m assuming this is running on some sort of unix so if you wrap your php call with something like this:

#!/bin/sh
# specify the full path and params below.
safe_exec()
{
    if /bin/ps -axww | /usr/bin/grep "$*" | /usr/bin/grep -v grep > /dev/null; then
        # the specified script running, don't start it again
        return
    else
        # run
        $*
    fi
}
safe_exec php /path/to/your/php/script.php

Your timed cron will re-start the script every time, as long as it’s not still running.

Another option is to optimize your script. If it’s infinitely looping while(true) {} and running out of ram, it’s doing something bad and be managed accordingly.

If you’re running out of time, you should set max_execution_time via set_time_limit() 0 for your CLI script.