How can one use multi threading in PHP applications

Question

Is there a realistic way of implementing a multi-threaded model in PHP whether truly  or just simulating it  Some time back it was suggested that you could force the operating system to load another instance of the PHP executable and handle other simultaneous processes   The problem with this is that when the PHP code finished executing the PHP instance remains in memory because there is no way to kill it from within PHP   So if you are simulating several threads you can imagine whats going to happen   So I am still looking for a way multi-threading can be done or simulated effectively from within PHP  Any ideas

User · Answer

The Thread class is available since PECL pthreads   2 0 0

User · Answer

Multithreading means performing multiple tasks or processes simultaneously  we can achieve this in php by using following code although there is no direct way to achieve multithreading in php but we can achieve almost same results by following way   chdir dirname   FILE         if you want to run this file as cron job  for   i   0   i  lt  2   i    1    exec  php test 1 php  i  gt  test txt  amp        this will execute test 1 php and will leave this process executing in the background and will go              to next iteration of the loop immediately without waiting the completion of the script in the        test 1 php    i  is passed as argument        Test 1 php   conn mysql connect  host  user  pass    db mysql select db  db    i    argv 1      this is the argument passed from index php file for  j   0  j lt 5000   j       mysql query  insert  into  test   set                  id   i                    comment  test                    datetime NOW            This will execute test 1 php two times simultaneously and both process will run in the background simultaneously  so in this way you can achieve multithreading in php   This guy done really good work  Multithreading in php

User · Answer

If you are using a Linux server  you can use   exec  nohup  php path path script php  gt   dev null 2 gt  dev null  amp      If you need pass some args   exec  nohup  php path path script php  args  gt   dev null 2 gt  dev null  amp      In script php   args    argv 1     Or use Symfony https   symfony com doc current components process html   process   Process  fromShellCommandline  php   base path  script php      process- gt setTimeout 0         process- gt disableOutput          process- gt start

User · Answer

using threads is made possible by the pthreads PECL extension  http   www php net manual en book pthreads php

User · Answer

You could simulate threading   PHP can run background processes via popen  or proc open    Those processes can be communicated with via stdin and stdout   Of course those processes can themselves be a php program   That is probably as close as you ll get

User · Answer

How about pcntl fork   check our the manual page for examples  PHP pcntl fork   lt  php       pid   pcntl fork        if   pid    -1            die  could not fork          else if   pid               we are the parent         pcntl wait  status     Protect against Zombie children       else              we are the child          gt

User · Answer

I know this is an old question but for people searching  there is a PECL extension written in C that gives PHP multi-threading capability now  it s located here https   github com krakjoe pthreads

User · Answer

While you can t thread  you do have some degree of process control in php  The two function sets that are useful here are   Process control functions http   www php net manual en ref pcntl php  POSIX functions http   www php net manual en ref posix php  You could fork your process with pcntl fork - returning the PID of the child  Then you can use posix kill to despose of that PID   That said  if you kill a parent process a signal should be sent to the child process telling it to die  If php itself isn t recognising this you could register a function to manage it and do a clean exit using pcntl signal

User · Answer

You can use exec   to run a command line script  such as command line php   and if you pipe the output to a file then your script won t wait for the command to finish   I can t quite remember the php CLI syntax  but you d want something like   exec   path to php -f   path to file php      path to output txt       I think quite a few shared hosting servers have exec   disabled by default for security reasons  but might be worth a try

User · Answer

Threading isn t available in stock PHP  but concurrent programming is possible by using HTTP requests as asynchronous calls   With the curl s timeout setting set to 1 and using the same session id for the processes you want to be associated with each other  you can communicate with session variables as in my example below  With this method you can even close your browser and the concurrent process still exists on the server   Don t forget to verify the correct session ID like this      http   localhost test verifysession php sessionid  the correct id    startprocess php   request    http   localhost test process1 php sessionid     REQUEST  PHPSESSID     ch   curl init    curl setopt  ch  CURLOPT URL   request   curl setopt  ch  CURLOPT RETURNTRANSFER  true   curl setopt  ch  CURLOPT TIMEOUT  1   curl exec  ch   curl close  ch   echo   REQUEST  PHPSESSID      process1 php  set time limit 0    if    REQUEST  sessionid       session id   REQUEST  sessionid      function checkclose        global   SESSION     if    SESSION  closesession                unset   SESSION  closesession            die            while   close       session start         SESSION  test     rand       checkclose       session write close       sleep 5       verifysession php  if    REQUEST  sessionid        session id   REQUEST  sessionid      session start    var dump   SESSION     closeprocess php  if    REQUEST  sessionid        session id   REQUEST  sessionid      session start      SESSION  closesession     true  var dump   SESSION

User · Answer

While you can t thread  you do have some degree of process control in php  The two function sets that are useful here are   Process control functions http   www php net manual en ref pcntl php  POSIX functions http   www php net manual en ref posix php  You could fork your process with pcntl fork - returning the PID of the child  Then you can use posix kill to despose of that PID   That said  if you kill a parent process a signal should be sent to the child process telling it to die  If php itself isn t recognising this you could register a function to manage it and do a clean exit using pcntl signal

User · Answer

Threading isn t available in stock PHP  but concurrent programming is possible by using HTTP requests as asynchronous calls   With the curl s timeout setting set to 1 and using the same session id for the processes you want to be associated with each other  you can communicate with session variables as in my example below  With this method you can even close your browser and the concurrent process still exists on the server   Don t forget to verify the correct session ID like this      http   localhost test verifysession php sessionid  the correct id    startprocess php   request    http   localhost test process1 php sessionid     REQUEST  PHPSESSID     ch   curl init    curl setopt  ch  CURLOPT URL   request   curl setopt  ch  CURLOPT RETURNTRANSFER  true   curl setopt  ch  CURLOPT TIMEOUT  1   curl exec  ch   curl close  ch   echo   REQUEST  PHPSESSID      process1 php  set time limit 0    if    REQUEST  sessionid       session id   REQUEST  sessionid      function checkclose        global   SESSION     if    SESSION  closesession                unset   SESSION  closesession            die            while   close       session start         SESSION  test     rand       checkclose       session write close       sleep 5       verifysession php  if    REQUEST  sessionid        session id   REQUEST  sessionid      session start    var dump   SESSION     closeprocess php  if    REQUEST  sessionid        session id   REQUEST  sessionid      session start      SESSION  closesession     true  var dump   SESSION

User · Answer

As of the writing of my current comment  I don t know about the PHP threads  I came to look for the answer here myself  but one workaround is that the PHP program that receives the request from the web server delegates the whole answer formulation to a console application that stores its output  the answer to the request  to a binary file and the PHP program that launched the console application returns that binary file byte-by-byte as the answer to the received request  The console application can be written in any programming language that runs on the server  including those that have proper threading support  including C   programs that use OpenMP   One unreliable  dirty  trick is to use PHP for executing a console application   uname    uname -a   and print the output of that console command to the HTML output to find out the exact version of the server software  Then install the exact same version of the software to a VirtualBox instance  compile assemble whatever fully self-contained  preferably static  binaries that one wants and then upload those to the server  From that point onwards the PHP application can use those binaries in the role of the console application that has proper multi-threading  It s a dirty  unreliable  workaround to a situation  when the server administrator has not installed all needed programming language implementations to the server  The thing to watch out for is that at every request that the PHP application receives the console application s  terminates exit get killed    As to what the hosting service administrators think of such server usage patterns  I guess it boils down to culture  In Northern Europe the service provider HAS TO DELIVER WHAT WAS ADVERTISED and if execution of console commands was allowed and uploading of non-malware files was allowed and the service provider has a right to kill any server process after a few minutes or even after 30 seconds  then the hosting service administrators lack any arguments for forming a proper complaint  In United States and Western Europe the situation culture is very different and I believe that there s a great chance that in U S  and or Western Europe the hosting service provider will   refuse to serve hosting service clients that use the above described trick  That s just my guess  given my personal experience with U S  hosting services and given what I have heard from others about Western European hosting services  As of the writing of my current comment 2018 09 01  I do not know anything about the cultural norms of the Southern-European hosting service providers  Southern-European network administrators

User · Answer

why don t you use popen   for   i 0   i lt 10   i             open ten processes     for   j 0   j lt 10   j               pipe  j    popen  script2 php    w                  wait for them to finish     for   j 0   j lt 10     j            pclose  pipe  j

User · Answer

You can use exec   to run a command line script  such as command line php   and if you pipe the output to a file then your script won t wait for the command to finish   I can t quite remember the php CLI syntax  but you d want something like   exec   path to php -f   path to file php      path to output txt       I think quite a few shared hosting servers have exec   disabled by default for security reasons  but might be worth a try

User · Answer

May be I missed something but exec did not worked as asynchronous for me in windows environment i used following in windows and it worked like charm      script exec    c  php php exe c  path my ascyn script php    pclose popen  start  B     script exec   r

User · Answer

You could simulate threading   PHP can run background processes via popen  or proc open    Those processes can be communicated with via stdin and stdout   Of course those processes can themselves be a php program   That is probably as close as you ll get

User · Answer

If you are using a Linux server  you can use   exec  nohup  php path path script php  gt   dev null 2 gt  dev null  amp      If you need pass some args   exec  nohup  php path path script php  args  gt   dev null 2 gt  dev null  amp      In script php   args    argv 1     Or use Symfony https   symfony com doc current components process html   process   Process  fromShellCommandline  php   base path  script php      process- gt setTimeout 0         process- gt disableOutput          process- gt start

User · Answer

Multithreading means performing multiple tasks or processes simultaneously  we can achieve this in php by using following code although there is no direct way to achieve multithreading in php but we can achieve almost same results by following way   chdir dirname   FILE         if you want to run this file as cron job  for   i   0   i  lt  2   i    1    exec  php test 1 php  i  gt  test txt  amp        this will execute test 1 php and will leave this process executing in the background and will go              to next iteration of the loop immediately without waiting the completion of the script in the        test 1 php    i  is passed as argument        Test 1 php   conn mysql connect  host  user  pass    db mysql select db  db    i    argv 1      this is the argument passed from index php file for  j   0  j lt 5000   j       mysql query  insert  into  test   set                  id   i                    comment  test                    datetime NOW            This will execute test 1 php two times simultaneously and both process will run in the background simultaneously  so in this way you can achieve multithreading in php   This guy done really good work  Multithreading in php

User · Answer

using threads is made possible by the pthreads PECL extension  http   www php net manual en book pthreads php

User · Answer

Multi-threading is possible in php  Yes you can do multi-threading in PHP with pthreads   From the PHP documentation      pthreads is an object-orientated API that provides all of the tools needed for multi-threading in PHP  PHP applications can create  read  write  execute and synchronize with Threads  Workers and Threaded objects       Warning    The pthreads extension cannot be used in a web server environment  Threading in PHP should therefore remain to CLI-based applications only    Simple Test     usr bin php  lt  php class AsyncOperation extends Thread        public function   construct  arg             this- gt arg    arg             public function run             if   this- gt arg                 sleep   mt rand 1  10               printf   s   s  -start -sleeps  d      n   date  g i sa     this- gt arg   sleep               sleep  sleep               printf   s   s  -finish      n   date  g i sa     this- gt arg                         Create a array  stack   array       Initiate Multiple Thread foreach   range  A    D   as  i          stack     new AsyncOperation  i         Start The Threads foreach    stack as  t          t- gt start         gt    First Run  12 00 06pm      A  -start -sleeps 5 12 00 06pm      B  -start -sleeps 3 12 00 06pm      C  -start -sleeps 10 12 00 06pm      D  -start -sleeps 2 12 00 08pm      D  -finish 12 00 09pm      B  -finish 12 00 11pm      A  -finish 12 00 16pm      C  -finish   Second Run   12 01 36pm      A  -start -sleeps 6 12 01 36pm      B  -start -sleeps 1 12 01 36pm      C  -start -sleeps 2 12 01 36pm      D  -start -sleeps 1 12 01 37pm      B  -finish 12 01 37pm      D  -finish 12 01 38pm      C  -finish 12 01 42pm      A  -finish   Real World Example  error reporting E ALL   class AsyncWebRequest extends Thread       public  url      public  data       public function   construct  url             this- gt url    url             public function run             if    url    this- gt url                                   If a large amount of data is being requested  you might want to                fsockopen and read using usleep in between reads                              this- gt data   file get contents  url             else             printf  Thread   lu was not provided a URL n    this- gt getThreadId               t   microtime true    g   new AsyncWebRequest sprintf  http   www google com  q  s   rand     10       starting synchronization    if   g- gt start          printf  Request took  f seconds to start    microtime true  -  t       while    g- gt isRunning               echo              usleep 100             if   g- gt join              printf   and  f seconds to finish receiving  d bytes n   microtime true  -  t  strlen  g- gt data          else         printf   and  f seconds to finish  request failed n   microtime true  -  t

User · Answer

How about pcntl fork   check our the manual page for examples  PHP pcntl fork   lt  php       pid   pcntl fork        if   pid    -1            die  could not fork          else if   pid               we are the parent         pcntl wait  status     Protect against Zombie children       else              we are the child          gt

User · Answer

While you can t thread  you do have some degree of process control in php  The two function sets that are useful here are   Process control functions http   www php net manual en ref pcntl php  POSIX functions http   www php net manual en ref posix php  You could fork your process with pcntl fork - returning the PID of the child  Then you can use posix kill to despose of that PID   That said  if you kill a parent process a signal should be sent to the child process telling it to die  If php itself isn t recognising this you could register a function to manage it and do a clean exit using pcntl signal

User · Answer

The Thread class is available since PECL pthreads   2 0 0

User · Answer

pcntl fork won t work in a web server environment if it has safe mode turned on  In this case  it will only work in the CLI version of PHP

User · Answer

why don t you use popen   for   i 0   i lt 10   i             open ten processes     for   j 0   j lt 10   j               pipe  j    popen  script2 php    w                  wait for them to finish     for   j 0   j lt 10     j            pclose  pipe  j

User · Answer

You can use exec   to run a command line script  such as command line php   and if you pipe the output to a file then your script won t wait for the command to finish   I can t quite remember the php CLI syntax  but you d want something like   exec   path to php -f   path to file php      path to output txt       I think quite a few shared hosting servers have exec   disabled by default for security reasons  but might be worth a try

User · Answer

Depending on what you re trying to do you could also use curl multi to achieve it

User · Answer

Multi-threading is possible in php  Yes you can do multi-threading in PHP with pthreads   From the PHP documentation      pthreads is an object-orientated API that provides all of the tools needed for multi-threading in PHP  PHP applications can create  read  write  execute and synchronize with Threads  Workers and Threaded objects       Warning    The pthreads extension cannot be used in a web server environment  Threading in PHP should therefore remain to CLI-based applications only    Simple Test     usr bin php  lt  php class AsyncOperation extends Thread        public function   construct  arg             this- gt arg    arg             public function run             if   this- gt arg                 sleep   mt rand 1  10               printf   s   s  -start -sleeps  d      n   date  g i sa     this- gt arg   sleep               sleep  sleep               printf   s   s  -finish      n   date  g i sa     this- gt arg                         Create a array  stack   array       Initiate Multiple Thread foreach   range  A    D   as  i          stack     new AsyncOperation  i         Start The Threads foreach    stack as  t          t- gt start         gt    First Run  12 00 06pm      A  -start -sleeps 5 12 00 06pm      B  -start -sleeps 3 12 00 06pm      C  -start -sleeps 10 12 00 06pm      D  -start -sleeps 2 12 00 08pm      D  -finish 12 00 09pm      B  -finish 12 00 11pm      A  -finish 12 00 16pm      C  -finish   Second Run   12 01 36pm      A  -start -sleeps 6 12 01 36pm      B  -start -sleeps 1 12 01 36pm      C  -start -sleeps 2 12 01 36pm      D  -start -sleeps 1 12 01 37pm      B  -finish 12 01 37pm      D  -finish 12 01 38pm      C  -finish 12 01 42pm      A  -finish   Real World Example  error reporting E ALL   class AsyncWebRequest extends Thread       public  url      public  data       public function   construct  url             this- gt url    url             public function run             if    url    this- gt url                                   If a large amount of data is being requested  you might want to                fsockopen and read using usleep in between reads                              this- gt data   file get contents  url             else             printf  Thread   lu was not provided a URL n    this- gt getThreadId               t   microtime true    g   new AsyncWebRequest sprintf  http   www google com  q  s   rand     10       starting synchronization    if   g- gt start          printf  Request took  f seconds to start    microtime true  -  t       while    g- gt isRunning               echo              usleep 100             if   g- gt join              printf   and  f seconds to finish receiving  d bytes n   microtime true  -  t  strlen  g- gt data          else         printf   and  f seconds to finish  request failed n   microtime true  -  t

User · Answer

Depending on what you re trying to do you could also use curl multi to achieve it

User · Answer

You can have option of    multi curl One can use system command for the same Ideal scenario is  create a threading function in C language and compile configure in PHP  Now that function will be the function of PHP

User · Answer

As of the writing of my current comment  I don t know about the PHP threads  I came to look for the answer here myself  but one workaround is that the PHP program that receives the request from the web server delegates the whole answer formulation to a console application that stores its output  the answer to the request  to a binary file and the PHP program that launched the console application returns that binary file byte-by-byte as the answer to the received request  The console application can be written in any programming language that runs on the server  including those that have proper threading support  including C   programs that use OpenMP   One unreliable  dirty  trick is to use PHP for executing a console application   uname    uname -a   and print the output of that console command to the HTML output to find out the exact version of the server software  Then install the exact same version of the software to a VirtualBox instance  compile assemble whatever fully self-contained  preferably static  binaries that one wants and then upload those to the server  From that point onwards the PHP application can use those binaries in the role of the console application that has proper multi-threading  It s a dirty  unreliable  workaround to a situation  when the server administrator has not installed all needed programming language implementations to the server  The thing to watch out for is that at every request that the PHP application receives the console application s  terminates exit get killed    As to what the hosting service administrators think of such server usage patterns  I guess it boils down to culture  In Northern Europe the service provider HAS TO DELIVER WHAT WAS ADVERTISED and if execution of console commands was allowed and uploading of non-malware files was allowed and the service provider has a right to kill any server process after a few minutes or even after 30 seconds  then the hosting service administrators lack any arguments for forming a proper complaint  In United States and Western Europe the situation culture is very different and I believe that there s a great chance that in U S  and or Western Europe the hosting service provider will   refuse to serve hosting service clients that use the above described trick  That s just my guess  given my personal experience with U S  hosting services and given what I have heard from others about Western European hosting services  As of the writing of my current comment 2018 09 01  I do not know anything about the cultural norms of the Southern-European hosting service providers  Southern-European network administrators

User · Answer

You can use exec   to run a command line script  such as command line php   and if you pipe the output to a file then your script won t wait for the command to finish   I can t quite remember the php CLI syntax  but you d want something like   exec   path to php -f   path to file php      path to output txt       I think quite a few shared hosting servers have exec   disabled by default for security reasons  but might be worth a try

User · Answer

I know this is an old question but for people searching  there is a PECL extension written in C that gives PHP multi-threading capability now  it s located here https   github com krakjoe pthreads

User · Answer

You can have option of    multi curl One can use system command for the same Ideal scenario is  create a threading function in C language and compile configure in PHP  Now that function will be the function of PHP

User · Answer

May be I missed something but exec did not worked as asynchronous for me in windows environment i used following in windows and it worked like charm      script exec    c  php php exe c  path my ascyn script php    pclose popen  start  B     script exec   r

User · Answer

pcntl fork won t work in a web server environment if it has safe mode turned on  In this case  it will only work in the CLI version of PHP

User · Answer

While you can t thread  you do have some degree of process control in php  The two function sets that are useful here are   Process control functions http   www php net manual en ref pcntl php  POSIX functions http   www php net manual en ref posix php  You could fork your process with pcntl fork - returning the PID of the child  Then you can use posix kill to despose of that PID   That said  if you kill a parent process a signal should be sent to the child process telling it to die  If php itself isn t recognising this you could register a function to manage it and do a clean exit using pcntl signal

[php] How can one use multi threading in PHP applications

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