How can I interrupt a PHP function that's taking too long?

Question

I would like to stop a simplexml_load_file if it takes too long to load and/or isn't reachable (occasionally the site with the xml goes down) seeing as I don't want my site to completely lag if theirs aren't up.

I tried to experiment a bit myself, but haven't managed to make anything work.

Thank you so much in advance for any help!

Possible duplicate of http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12399610/set-time-out-on-simplexml-load-file — Praxis Ashelin, Mar 14 '14 at 21:17

Amal Murali · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-14T19:17:17.380

You can't have an arbitrary function quit after a specified time. What you can do instead is to try to load the contents of the URL first - and if it succeeds, continue processing the rest of the script.

There are several ways to achieve this. The easiest is to use file_get_contents() with a stream context set:

$context = stream_context_create(array('http' => array('timeout' => 5)));

$xmlStr = file_get_contents($url, FALSE, $context);
$xmlObj = simplexml_load_string($xmlStr);

Or you could use a stream context with simplexml_load_file() via the libxml_set_streams_context() function:

$context = stream_context_create(array('http' => array('timeout' => 5)));

libxml_set_streams_context($context);
$xmlObj = simplexml_load_file($url);

You could wrap it as a nice little function:

function simplexml_load_file_from_url($url, $timeout = 5)
{
    $context = stream_context_create(
        array('http' => array('timeout' => (int) $timeout))
    );
    $data = file_get_contents($url, FALSE, $context);

    if(!$data) {
        trigger_error("Couldn't get data from: '$url'", E_USER_NOTICE);
        return FALSE;
    }

    return simplexml_load_string($data);
}

Alternatively, you can consider using the cURL (available by default). The benefit of using cURL is that you get really fine grained control over the request and how to handle the response.

Shankar Narayana Damodaran · Answer 2 · 2014-03-15T01:44:18.063

1

You should be using a stream context with a timeout option coupled with file_get_contents

$context = stream_context_create(array('http' => array('timeout' => 5))); //<---- Setting timeout to 5 seconds...

and now map that to your file_get_contents

$xml_load = file_get_contents('http://yoururl', FALSE, $context);
$xml = simplexml_load_string($xml_load);

edited Mar 15 '14 at 01:44

answered Mar 14 '14 at 18:05

Shankar Narayana Damodaran

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You can also use `libxml_set_streams_context($context);` prior to calling `simplexml_load_file` to achieve this. – Amal Murali Mar 14 '14 at 18:10
btw, +1 for pointing into the right direction. Maybe you can add `libxml_set_streams_context` as Amal suggested? – hek2mgl Mar 14 '14 at 18:29
@hek2mgl, I never tried that ..I wish if Amal edits this answer. – Shankar Narayana Damodaran Mar 14 '14 at 18:32
@AmalMurali Maybe you can finish this *collaborative* work? Greetings to India from Berlin! :) – hek2mgl Mar 14 '14 at 18:35
@hek2mgl: Didn't want to change this answer radically, so I've added [my own](http://stackoverflow.com/a/22413629/1438393). – Amal Murali Mar 14 '14 at 19:04
I get "Warning: stream_context_create(): options should have the form ["wrappername"]["optionname"] = $value" when trying this. Any idea why? – user3397543 Mar 14 '14 at 21:24
@user3397543, Seems like there was a wrong mapping on the `context_create`. I have fixed that. It works now and am glad that you found an answer. – Shankar Narayana Damodaran Mar 15 '14 at 01:45

How can I interrupt a PHP function that's taking too long?

2 Answers2