Question

My website runs simplexml commands to pull data from 2 different websites, and doesn’t finish loading the page until after the functions have their responses.

This is really only 1-2 seconds, but it is noticable when regular webpages take milliseconds to load.

Since this code is already in PHP functions, how can I most efficiently load the page and execute the code after? I’m assuming that by the time the page loads, the functions will have executed as well, its just that the browser itself won’t refresh and finish loading til execution completes.

Hope this makes sense to you.

Answer 1

You have a few options.

1. AJAX call — once the important stuff loads, have JS send word to the server that it needs to do some process to complete loading. (rennekon and Dan Grossman seem to have already suggested this).
2. iframe similar to AJAX, but it does not require JS. Placed at the bottom of the HTML it can let the server know something needs to finish without worrying about any other rendering. (this can actually also be accomplished by any number of tags which make HTTP requests. img attacks are notorious for allowing this with vulnerable sites.)
3. Spawn a new thread. This is a bit more difficult/annoying, but it does not rely on user feedback to finish processing. You also may not be able to do this on most servers, but it is one way to finish processing in the background.