Question

On a http website, I have loads of csv files stored which chronological naming scheme. I wrote a PHP program (running on localhost) to programmatically generate each files name using date functions and use file_get_contents() to write the files locally.

I have tested for a limited range of dates and am able to get the files (each around 1.3M). However, over a large period (say, 3 years, with a file for each weekday), would this cause a timeout? Or is it not a timeout because the response has not actually stopped?

Here’s the code for reference:

<?php
$start_date = '08SEP2009';
$check_date = $start_date;
$end_date = '14SEP2009';

function getNextDate() {
    global $check_date;
    $check_date = date("dMY", strtotime ("+1 day", strtotime($check_date))); //get next date
    return $check_date;
}   

function downloadFiles() {
    $cur_date = getNextDate();

    $url = "http://nse-india.com/content/historical/DERIVATIVES/YYYY/MMM/foDDMMMYYYYbhav.csv"; //this represents the naming scheme for the CSVs
    while(strcasecmp($cur_date, $end_date)) {
        $year = date("Y", strtotime($cur_date)); //get year (2004)
        $month = strtoupper(date("M", strtotime($cur_date))); //get month (SEP)
        $day = date("d", strtotime($cur_date)); //get day of month (09)

        $filename = str_replace('DD', $day, str_replace('MMM', $month, str_replace('YYYY', $year, $url))); //construct file name for new date
        $content = @file_get_contents($filename); 
        $localfile = array_reverse(explode("/", $filename)); //reverse array so that filename.csv comes as first element
        $localfile = $localfile[0]; //filename to store locally

        $handle = fopen($localfile, "w");
        fwrite($handle, $content); //save file locally
        fclose($handle);
    }
}

downloadFiles();
?>

Answer 1

PHP scripts have a configurable timeout period. Generally this is set to 30 seconds by default in the php.ini file, configurable with the max_execution_time setting. You would be well-advised to call set_time_limit(0) (see set_time_limit()) to remove this limit.

Other than that, there is no specific reason why your script should time out. You might want to remove the @ from the file_get_contents() call however, and handle any triggered errors yourself, just to facilitate the process. That is a very likely place that you’re going to see issues if any arise.