Call another PHP script and return control to user before the other script completes

Question

I\'m actually trying to apply this to a script that sends email. The sending email part takes a few seconds which is too long. What I want is for the first script to do its

Answer 1

You can also call the shell and manually call the PHP file. No cron required and no waiting.

http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.exec.php

From the Notes Section

"If a program is started with this function, in order for it to continue running in the background, the output of the program must be redirected to a file or another output stream. Failing to do so will cause PHP to hang until the execution of the program ends."