So, that’s what I’m trying to do – pretty self-explanatory actually :
- Initiate X ‘simultaneous’ processes (each bound to a different php script)
- Be able to say when all of them are finished
I’ve had a look at various different approaches, and I’m probably going to use exec and background processes. (Something along these lines).
The thing – which I really can’t get my head around – is :
I can’t figure out which is the most efficient way to check whether ALL of the processes are finished (being able to keep an eye on the general progress – e.g. X out of Y finished, is also a must).
What is important is time-efficiency, and – obviously – not causing any unnecessary server overload (so, I suppose any ‘frozen’ while loop checking for live pids, even if at intervals, is out of the question, right?)
ANY suggestions are very much welcome!
P.S.: I’ve initially set this whole thing up with asynchronous Ajax requests starting from the client-side, but I’m currently considering a migration to a non-javascript fully-server-side environment. The issue with parallel-processing though remains…
You should investigate the pcntl_fork and related functions. This allows one master process to form a number of child processes and be notified of child exit status.
http://php.net/manual/en/function.pcntl-fork.php