Scalable, Delayed PHP Processing

Question

I\'m working on an online PHP application that has a need for delayed PHP event. Basically I need to be able to execute arbitrary PHP code x many seconds (but it could be da

Answer 1

A can't think of anything that does everything you asked for:

• has to be very precise
• delay for long periods of time
• ability to remove/change the time of the event

The trivial way would be to use a combination of the following functions:

set_time_limit(0);
ignore_user_abort(true);
time_sleep_until(strtotime('next Friday'));
// execute code

However, like @deceze said it's probably not a very good idea since if you set up a high delay Apache could eventually kill the child process (unless you're using PHP CLI, that would make it easier). It also doesn't allow you to change / delete the event unless you set up a more complex logic and a database to hold the events. Also, register_shutdown_function() might be useful if you want to go this road.

A better approach would be to set up a CRON job in my opinion.