Question

I want to repeatedly check a variable every time php wakes up from sleep(). Further, if 3 minutes have passed without finding a particular variable then the function should stop checking. How would I go about this? This is the code I have thus far:

<?php
  $file = file_get_contents("file.txt");
  if($file == 0){
    sleep(3);// then go back to $file
  } else {
    //stuff i want
  }
?>

Answer 1

If you want to keep doing something until something else happens, you want a loop. You have two things to check to see if you should exit the loop: the file variable and the length of time. You need to add a variable to keep track of the time, or you need to check the time each time you loop and compare it to the start time.

<?php

     $file = file_get_contents("file.txt");
     $timesChecked = 0;
     while($file == 0 and $timesChecked < 60)
     {
         sleep(3);
         $timesChecked++;
         $file = file_get_contents("file.txt");
     } 
     if($file != 0)
     {
          // stuff i want
     } else {
          // 3 minutes elapsed
     }
 ?>