A quick question that I don't know where to turn to to get the answer for: Can I, using PHP on a Apache - Create a persistent process that updates a database? Ie, I have a web site that runs using PHP that will display the state of the database - But, I also want a 'ticking, persistent process' that continuously runs and updates that database. I suspect the answer is no, and that I would have to write that as a Java program or something - But kinda want it confirmed. Thanks!

Yes you can write "regular" applications in PHP, just like any other language.
In fact, I've worked at a company that used PHP to extract game assets from a database and compiled them into game-archive formats ;)

However, you probably don't want to start this PHP application through apache, you should start the script running yourself by running "php.exe c:/yourfile.php" etc...
On a windows-based server you could configure this as a scheduled task and on *nix servers you could use a cron job.


Also, PHP normally imposes a time limit on how long a PHP application can execute for (because usually a long execution time means that a web-page is broken), so make sure to read up on the set_time_limit function.

Ahh so PHP (and its related SQL functions) are not depending on running in the context of a web server?

Quote:Original post by JensB
Ahh so PHP (and its related SQL functions) are not depending on running in the context of a web server?

Nope, it's not.
You can just run php.exe yourself and give it a script to run.

That said, PHP's focus is on web development. There are things that PHP isn't really good at such as threading and interprocess communication. There are also memory issues with long-running processes.

If none of that applies to you then have a blast. There are even GTK bindings for PHP so you can write desktop GUI applications. But you may want to give Python a spin. It's much better suited at such tasks.

Quote:Original post by Sander
That said, PHP's focus is on web development. There are things that PHP isn't really good at such as threading and interprocess communication. There are also memory issues with long-running processes.

If none of that applies to you then have a blast. There are even GTK bindings for PHP so you can write desktop GUI applications. But you may want to give Python a spin. It's much better suited at such tasks.

you saying phyton is better at the persistent thing I'm trying to do? (memory is an issue indeed) -- or are you saying phyton is better at gui?

It depends on the type of application you're writing. PHP is perfect for writing things that you execute at the commandline. I.e. things that you start (either manually from the commandline or from a cron job) then do a certain task and then exit when the task is done. However, if you are planning to write a daemon process (i.e. something that runs in the background all the time and communicates with other processes) then you had better look at Python or Perl (or plain old C/C++).

Python is just really easy and fun to work with, but it's quite different from PHP. If all you know is PHP then it will take some time to getting used to, but it will be a fun ride. Once you get used to the idea of using whitespace instead or curly braces to mark blocks of code it's really an elegant language.

Perl is a lot more like PHP but has a significant amount of quirks (just like PHP). If you only know PHP it's probably easier to get going in Perl but it's harder to master in the end. The lack of proper Object Orientation is a drawback.

I would recommend against using C/C++ for any daemon processes unless you're an expert in those languages.