Php takes too long to be executed, need thread

Question

I've been learning to program in PHP and made an application which makes several independent things, the problem is it takes about 20-30 seconds to finish the task, because the code is executed sequentially.

I was reading and found out that there are no threads in php, is there any way to get around?

Edit: added information:

Basically, my application will seek information from news, weather, etc. (with file_get_contents($url)), but performs the functions sequentially, in other words, first fetches the news, then information about weather, and successively, instead of running it all at the same time .

Without knowing what you're doing, how do you expect us to help you? — Mark Baker, Dec 01 '13 at 14:09
it usually dont take that much time...tell us something more about what you are trying to achieve...that might help.. — HIRA THAKUR, Dec 01 '13 at 14:09
Edited and added some info, i cant paste all my code because its a little complex — Vítor Campeã, Dec 01 '13 at 14:16
use CURL_MULTI instead, much faster. `http://php.net/manual/en/function.curl-multi-init.php` — Oleg Belousov, Dec 01 '13 at 14:19
at this moment is running on my xampp, but i wanted to test on some server for study porpouses — Vítor Campeã, Dec 01 '13 at 14:43
tested the example of your link, and Fatal error: Maximum execution time of 30 seconds exceeded in C:\Program Files (x86)\XAMPP\htdocs\index.php on line 26 — Vítor Campeã, Dec 01 '13 at 15:08

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 01 '13 at 14:16

3

Use some kind of job-queuing software like Gearman or RabbitMQ, then - put those ops in the consumer.

answered Dec 01 '13 at 14:16

eRIZ

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score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 01 '13 at 15:00

2

use CURL_MULTI instead, much faster. http://php.net/manual/en/function.curl-multi-init.php

It will reduce the loading \ processing time noticeably if you are reading numerous pages.

answered Dec 01 '13 at 15:00

Oleg Belousov

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tested the example1 on a new clean php file of your link, and "Fatal error: Maximum execution time of 30 seconds exceeded in C:\Program Files (x86)\XAMPP\htdocs\index.php on line 26" :s – Vítor Campeã Dec 01 '13 at 15:13
edit php.ini, set max_execution_time to 0 – Oleg Belousov Dec 01 '13 at 15:23
sad, none of codes on that link work Q_Q – Vítor Campeã Dec 01 '13 at 15:29
Do you have the CURL extension installed? – Oleg Belousov Dec 01 '13 at 15:30
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/13021536/how-to-enable-curl-in-wamp-server – Oleg Belousov Dec 01 '13 at 15:30
yes i have, i use XAMPP, but i have it activated – Vítor Campeã Dec 01 '13 at 15:36
Well, I can tell you for a fact the CURL_MULTI does work, and it fetches multiple p[ages unconsciously. So perhaps it could be a good solution for you – Oleg Belousov Dec 01 '13 at 15:37
yes, it is, trying to get a clean working code ^^ so i can learn how it works – Vítor Campeã Dec 01 '13 at 15:39
not the true asnwer, but guided me, so i take it as answer :) – Vítor Campeã Dec 01 '13 at 20:56

score -1 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 01 '13 at 14:37

You could also try to hack in some threading behaviour by launching different requests to your webserver at the same time. For instance, your index.php would serve a simple page, which contains a number of AJAX calls to, say, fetchNews.php and fetchWeather.php. These requests would then be run asynchronously, in parallel, by the browser, and you'd circumvent phps limit on threading by just launching different webserver requests.

Thom Wiggers · Answer 4 · 2013-12-01T14:34:57.207

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You mention that you're doing a bunch of file_get_contents($url)-calls. These are pretty slow. It would be a huge timesaver if instead of pulling these files in every time you load the page, you cache them to local storage and read them from there: that would be almost instant. Of course, you'd need to keep in mind how fresh you need your information.

For instance you could run a cron job that fetches these files every minute or so. Then you could have your website render this fetched information: the information would only be max 1 minute + the time it takes to run that script out of date.

edited Dec 01 '13 at 14:34

answered Dec 01 '13 at 14:18

Thom Wiggers

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"my application will seek information from news, weather" - so he needs fresh information, not cached. – Sergiu Paraschiv Dec 01 '13 at 14:19
I doubt those websites update every 3 seconds. – Thom Wiggers Dec 01 '13 at 14:19
Why would he run his code every 3 seconds in the first place? If he does then he shouldn't. Having a cache is not the best solution. – Sergiu Paraschiv Dec 01 '13 at 14:20
Figuratively. If he'd for instance pull these files every minute from a cron job, and use the cached version in the webserver code, he'd massively speed up performance. – Thom Wiggers Dec 01 '13 at 14:23
thanks for replying, but the information is allways changing :p, would be a few times that it would be used – Vítor Campeã Dec 01 '13 at 14:50

Php takes too long to be executed, need thread

4 Answers4