>PHP: set_time_limit

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set_time_limit

konrads dot smelkovs at gmail dot com
01-Apr-2006 06:35


If you are streaming large data from database, it is counted towards the max exec time.

jatin at jatinchimote dot com
01-Mar-2006 10:54


If you set the number of seconds to a very large number (not many ppl do that, but just in case) then php exits with a fatal error like :



Fatal error: Maximum execution time of 1 second exceeded in /path/to/your/script/why.php

Cleverduck
28-Feb-2006 01:36


Regarding what 'nytshadow' said, it's important to realize that max-execution-time and the set_time_limit functions measure the time that the CPU is working on the script.  If the script blocks, IE: for input, select, sleep, etc., then the time between blocking and returning is NOT measured.  This is the same when running scripts from the command line interface.  So if you've got a log parser written in PHP that tails a file, that program WILL fail eventually.  It just depends how long it takes to read in enough input to process for 30 seconds.



If you're writing a command line script that should run infinitely, setting max-execution-time to 0 (never stop) is HIGHLY recommended.

rycardo74 at gmail dot com
24-Nov-2005 10:52


this work to fine html streaming AND time pass limit



<?

header('Content-type: text/plain');

echo date("H:m:s"), "\n";

set_time_limit(30);

for ($i = 0; $i < 1000; $i++)

{



    echo date("H:m:s"),"\n";

    for ($r = 0; $r < 100000; $r++){

    $X.=  tan(M_LNPI+log(ceil(  date("s")*M_PI*M_LNPI+100)));

    }

    ob_flush();   

    flush();



}

echo "work! $x";

?>

Balin 4 ever

G8 = lies

free your mind

nytshadow
14-Jul-2005 08:15


This tripped me up for a bit until I read through the ini settings.  When doing file uploads, max_execution_time does not affect the time even though the error message indicates the script has exceeded the maximum execution time.  The max_input_time determines how much time PHP will wait to receive file data.  The default setting is 60 seconds so while I had my max_execution_time set to 300, the script would fail after 60 seconds but report that it had exceeded the max execution time of 300.

niam dot niam at gmail dot com chebatron at gmail dot com
24-Jun-2005 06:43


<?php

echo date("H:m:s"), "\n";

set_time_limit(30);

for ($i = 0; $i < 100; $i++)

{

    sleep(10);

    echo date("H:m:s"),"\n";

}

echo "Done!";

?>



Guys! This script runs 100*10 seconds +- few microseconds for circle and output. 

But not promissed 30 seconds!!!

set_time_limit sets CPU time! Texted on *NIX.

Sjoerd van der Hoorn
21-Jun-2005 03:08


When using the set_time_limit() function, the browser will stop after about 30 seconds if it does not get new data. To prevent this, you can send every 10 seconds a little snippet of data (like a single character) to the browser. The code below is tested with both Internet Explorer and Firefox, so it will stay online all the time.



You should also create a file called chatdata.txt which contains the last thing said on a chatbox. Please note that you can also replace this function with a MySQL or other database function... 



<?php



set_time_limit(900);



// Start output buffering

ob_start();



$message = "First test message";

$oldmessage = "bla";



// Keep on repeating this to prevent PHP from stopping the script

while (true)

{

    $timeoutcounter = 0;

    while ($message == $oldmessage)

    {

        // If 10 seconds elapsed, send a dot (or any other character)

        if ($timeoutcounter == 10)

        {

            echo ".";

            flush();

            ob_flush();

            $timeoutcounter = 0;

        }

        // Timeout executing

        sleep(1);

        // Check for a new message

        $message = file_get_contents("chatdata.txt");

        $timeoutcounter++;

    }



    // Keep the old message in mind

    $oldmessage = $message;



    // And send the message to the user

    echo "<script>window.alert(\"" . $message . "\");</script>";



    // Now, clear the output buffer

    flush();

    ob_flush();

}



?>

eric pecoraro at shepard com
06-Jun-2005 12:57


I was having trouble with script timeouts in applications where the user prompted long running background actions. I wrote this cURL/CLI background script that solved the problem when making requests from HTTP.



<?php



/* BACKGROUND CLI 1.0

   

   eric pecoraro _at_ shepard dot com - 2005-06-02

   Use at your own risk. No warranties expressed or implied.



   Include this file at the top of any script to run it in the background

   with no time limitations ... e.g., include('background_cli.php');

   

   The script that calls this file should not return output to the browser. 

*/

#  REQUIREMENTS - cURL and CLI

   if ( !function_exists('curl_setopt') OR !function_exists('curl_setopt')  ) {

      echo 'Requires cURL and CLI installations.' ; exit ; 

   }

   

#  BUILD PATHS

   $script = array_pop(explode('/',$SCRIPT_NAME)) ; 

   $script_dir = substr($SCRIPT_NAME,0,strlen($SCRIPT_NAME)-strlen($script)) ;

   $scriptURL = 'http://'. $HTTP_HOST . $script_dir . "$script" ;

   $curlURL = 'http://'. $HTTP_HOST . $script_dir . "$script?runscript=curl" ;



#  Indicate that script is being called by CLI 

   if ( php_sapi_name() == 'cli' ) {

      $CLI = true ;

   }



#  Action if script is being called by cURL_prompt()

   if ( $runscript == 'curl' ) {

      $cmd = "/usr/local/bin/php ".$PATH_TRANSLATED ; // server location of script to run

      exec($cmd) ;

      exit;

   }



#  USER INTERFACE

   // User answer after submission.

   if ( $post ) {

      cURL_prompt($curlURL) ;

      echo '<div style="margin:25px;"><title>Background CLI</title>';

      echo 'O.K. If all goes well, <b>'.$script.'</b> is working hard in the background with no ' ;

      echo 'timeout limitations. <br><br><form action='.$scriptURL.' method=GET>' ;

      echo '<input type=submit value=" RESET BACKGROUND CLI "></form></div>' ;

      exit ;

   }

   // Start screen.

   if ( !$CLI AND !$runscript ) {

      echo '<title>Background CLI</title><div style="margin:25px;">' ;

      echo '<form action='.$scriptURL.' method=POST>' ;

      echo 'Click to run <b>'.$script.'</b> from the PHP CLI command line, in the background.<br><br>' ;

      echo '<input type=hidden value=1 name=post>' ;

      echo '<input type=submit value=" RUN IN BACKGROUND "></form></div>' ;

      exit ;

   }



#  cURL URL PROMPT FUNCTION

   function cURL_prompt($url_path) {

      ob_start(); // start output buffer

      $c=curl_init($url_path);

      curl_setopt($c, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 2); // drop connection after 2 seconds

      curl_exec($c);

      curl_close($c);

      ob_end_clean(); // discard output buffer

   }

?>

Jimmy Wimenta
23-Sep-2004 12:15


Referring the the last 2 comments about whether the duration of sleep() will be counted in execution time, the answer is it depends on the platform. In Linux it does not, while in Windows it does.

nathan
06-Apr-2004 02:04


unless I am doing something stupid, my testing (at least on php 4.3.4) seems to indicate that sleep() does indeed count towards script execution time, contrary to the previous post.



Here is my test code:



for ($i=0; $i < 10; $i++) {

    sleep(10);

    echo " [$i] ";

}



This will exceed execution time after only 2 loops.

riki1512 at gmx dot de
02-Apr-2004 04:26


The duration of the pause when calling the sleep() function is also not added to script-execution time.

php at mightycpa.com
26-Jun-2003 01:30


You may also need to look at Apache's timeout setting (Win32 version for me), I changed max execution time value in php.ini, and still got stopped by Apache's timeout value in the httpd.conf file.

rsallo at gna dot NOSPAM dot es
30-May-2003 04:28


When you are working with IIS, PHP timeout is valid only when it's lower than script timeout defined by IIS.



IIS 5 has a default timeout of 300 seconds. If you need a higher timeout, you also have to change IIS properties. Otherwise, your server will stop your PHP script before it reaches its own timeout.

16-Oct-2001 05:04


user abort stop the script


see "ignore_user_abort"

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