Question

I am converting a PDF with PDF2SWF and Indexing with XPDF.. with exec.. only this requires the execution time to be really high.

Is it possible to run it as background process and then launch a script when it is done converting?

Answer 1

in general, php does not implement threads.

But there is an ZF-class which may be suitable for you:

http://framework.zend.com/manual/en/zendx.console.process.unix.overview.html

ZendX_Console_Process_Unix allows
developers to spawn an object as a new
process, and so do multiple tasks in
parallel on console environments.
Through its specific nature, it is
only working on nix based systems
like Linux, Solaris, Mac/OSx and such.
Additionally, the shmop_, pcntl_* and
posix_* modules are required for this
component to run. If one of the
requirements is not met, it will throw
an exception after instantiating the
component.

suitable example:

class MyProcess extends ZendX_Console_Process_Unix
{
    protected function _run()
    {
        // doing pdf and flash stuff
    }
}

$process1 = new MyProcess();
$process1->start();

while ($process1->isRunning()) {

    sleep(1);

}

echo 'Process completed';

.