PHP - Avoiding Timeout Error?

I have the following code:

$fp = fopen(“path_to_file”, ‘a’);
flock($fp, LOCK_EX);
fwrite($fp, $string);
flock($fp, LOCK_UN);  
fclose($fp);

If I try to lock the file in two different places at the same time, this will cause a race condition. How can I prevent this? I know in Java, for example, it has a concurrent library which contains reentrant lock, which basically tries to get the lock and if can't waits. What can I do in PHP?

 I have questions but I also have some good info to share about putting your software in the cloud.  

The situation:

Some of you may have read about the nightmare stories. A developer had a infinite loop in his code that ran all night. This code did things inefficiently that devoured CPU in each iteration. This developer, greatly skilled,  opened his email the next morning and saw a email bill from his cloud provider totaling for $75K. True story. 

Most cloud providers let you define CPU usage thresholds that, when breached, send you a warning but these thresholds, if I understand them, are per account. 

It would seem the claim that cloud resources are available in whatever amounts you need, CPU, disk space, enough RAM to never have to wait on a page faults, etc... the claim that the cloud provides you with infinitely elastic  resources in an "all you can eat for one price" contract smells just a like a little like 💩

I did cloud development for many years with ServiceNow starting when it was a help desk and I watched it evolve into one of the best cloud development platforms out there. At one customer site I installed and managed it it out of the cloud and saw its insides and I can tell you its core code is not so terribly efficient. IMHO the cloud DOES take away 90% of a developer's worries about app performance..

If you call ServiceNow tech support and your problem is diagnosed as a performance issue with your code the first thing they will ask you is "did you follow the developer best practices"? They will politely say "sorry. Here's a link to them implying "fix your code". 

Questions: 

PHP Functions that devour CPU and where there is a better way?

What PHP functions or code techniques waste CPU? I am using similar_text and it does the job but it is slow. Better way?

What is the best way to measure CPU used by a PHP script or by a particular code module, defined as a set of related functions that fulfill a common purpose or by a single line of code? The purpose being to identify inefficient modules of code and improve them and even if the code is damn near perfect then at least can know what code modules are the most expensive.

CPU killin users (and developers too), how can they be identified?

I need to store data on cumulative CPU usage for any of the above and compare it with the free amount they give you and warn CPU hogs before they breach a threshold and generate $75K bills that were not in the plan.

Any info you have on avoiding surprise $75K CPU bills from a cloud provider are welcome

 

 

 

 

It would seem the 

So i have this script that connects to a game data base and it must select and make a top of some columns in data base. The thing is if the data base is offline then the script kinda blocks the website because it has no timeout option. How can i add like a $timeout=2 (in seconds) thing..so if after 2 seconds it gets no connection the script is killed
Thanks in advance


<?php
   $database_info = array(
      'host' => '___', 
      'user' => '___',
      'password' => '___',
      'l2jdb' => '___'
   );
@mysql_connect($database_info['host'], $database_info['user'], $database_info['password']) or die(mysql_error());
@mysql_select_db($database_info['l2jdb']) or die(mysql_error());
echo "<table class=\"pvp\">";

$query = "SELECT * FROM characters WHERE accesslevel = 0 ORDER BY pvpkills DESC limit 10"; //change 10 to whatever amount you want to show on your website.
$result = mysql_query($query) or die(mysql_error());

while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result))

{

   $name = $row['char_name'];
   $pvpscore = $row['pvpkills'];
   
   
   // Inserting data into the table
   echo "
   
   <tr>
   <td width=\"110\"><strong> $name</strong></td>
        <td width=\"50\"><div align=\"center\">$pvpscore</div></td>
   </tr>";
   
}

echo "</table>";

//closing mysql connection
mysql_close();
?>

I am trying to transfer a large amount of data from a text file exported from a Microsoft Access database into a MSQL database.  I have written a script in PHP to open the text file, read a line at a time, sort out the data for insertion into a new table and then insert the data into the table in the MSQL database.  This works perfectly for 3 or 100+ records, so the fundamentals appear to be solid.  The problem starts when I try to do all the records - about 33,500.  I get:

Fatal error: Maximum execution time of 30 seconds exceeded in C:\DATA\HTMLServedDocs\MusicIndex\MusicImport.php on line 40.

Line 40 is the database write: $result = mysqli_query($dbc, $query);

I'm not sure if the root of the error is the Web Server, the Database or something else.  I am using the Abyss server, which while it is a bit clunky it is appropriate for the application.  

Does anyone have any ideas how to get around this problem.  I could split the data up into smaller files but that is not ideal.  

Hi
I am trying to create a "User logged" function that tells the database when the user was logged in, I have heard about creating a time out for this, but dont have any idea how to do it or what it does!
Any one have any ideas?
Thanks
Rhys

I am using this code to check if a server is running. Everything is fine when it is running, but when it's not, it takes ages for the fsockopen to fail. Is there a way to make it timeout faster?
    
if (fsockopen($settings->survival_server, $settings->survival_port, $timeout = 0.1)){
        $survival['status'] = "Up";
    }else {
        $survival['status'] = "Down"
}

Hi Im trying to keep a session open once a user logs in for a large amount of time ( months)

I have set the following in a .htaccess file

php_value session.cookie_lifetime 99999999
php_value session.gc_maxlifetime 99999999

But i still lose the session and get logged out after 10 minutes or so i have created a phpinfo page and see that for these values the following is set

session.cookie_lifetime 99999999( local) 0 (global)
session.gc_maxlifetime 99999999 ( local) 1440 (global)

What is the difference between the local and global?

Any other ides why might session keeps timing out after 10 mins or so of inactivity?

Okay, I'm not quite sure how to state this, so I'll try my best.

Is it possible to setup some kind of "after so long, it changes the state of something from 'fighting' to 'active'" query or function?

What is happening is that people are fighting in my game, then choosing to just close their browser rather than quit the fight, to change the monster's state back to 'active', so other people can fight it.

Does that make sense?

Any thoughts or could someone point me in the right direction?

Thanks!!

Hey I was wondering is there a way I can set my sessions to timeout/end a session after a certain amount of time? Here is what I am dealing with...
Code: [Select]
<?php
session_start();

$username = $_SESSION['username'];
$userid = $_SESSION['userid'];
?>

Hi there. 

How do I stop a function from running it it's taking to long to proccess.  For example, say after 10 seconds the code is still working I display an error message?  As you can in the following code it's pulling the contents from an url or file which might take too long to load.


function Tester($url);
{

return file_get_contents($url);

}


Thanks a mil

I have a site up where my client can enter some text in a box, and save it to a database.  But the page keeps timing out.  I can't get it to happen in Firefox or Chrome so it leads me to believe that its a setting in IE?

This is what I have tried:

set_time_limit(0) which i understand sets the time limit for the script to unlimitted.


ini_set("session.use_cookies", 1);
ini_set("session.cookie_lifetime", 0);

Turns cookies on, and makes them last forever.

session_set_cookie_params(3600);
Makes a cookies last for an hour.

I have tried all of these, and I have tried them in pieces.
[EDIT] I do places all before session_start

I have read that some of this can go into the php.ini file, but I cannot figure out exactly what I am supposed to add?

Our current php.ini is the default:

* CODE *******************************************************************************
register_globals = off
allow_url_fopen = off

expose_php = Off
max_input_time = 60
variables_order = "EGPCS"
extension_dir = ./
upload_tmp_dir = /tmp
precision = 12
SMTP = relay-hosting.secureserver.net
url_rewriter.tags = "a=href,area=href,frame=src,input=src,form=,fieldset="

; Only uncomment zend optimizer lines if your application requires Zend Optimizer support

;[Zend]
;zend_optimizer.optimization_level=15
;zend_extension_manager.optimizer=/usr/local/Zend/lib/Optimizer-3.3.3
;zend_extension_manager.optimizer_ts=/usr/local/Zend/lib/Optimizer_TS-3.3.3
;zend_extension=/usr/local/Zend/lib/Optimizer-3.3.3/ZendExtensionManager.so
;zend_extension_ts=/usr/local/Zend/lib/Optimizer_TS-3.3.3/ZendExtensionManager_TS.so


; -- Be very careful to not to disable a function which might be needed!
; -- Uncomment the following lines to increase the security of your PHP site.

;disable_functions = "highlight_file,ini_alter,ini_restore,openlog,passthru,
;            phpinfo, exec, system, dl, fsockopen, set_time_limit,
;                     popen, proc_open, proc_nice,shell_exec,show_source,symlink"
* CODE *******************************************************************************

Where do I go from here?  What is my next step?

Thanks for taking the time to read my post, and thanks for the help!
Nick

I've been getting this error:

Fatal error: Maximum execution time of 30 seconds exceeded in... (gives file and line number)

I've cut out most of the code in the for loop to narrow it down specifically to the $i variable messing it up somehow...
The 2nd part of the if statement where I try to append the $i variable to the new $row_ variable is causing it to hang like this. 
I want to be able to make 5 new variables... $row_1...$row_2...etc...  but for some reason when I try to append the $i to it, it hangs. and throws that error eventually.  Does anyone know why it does this? Any help is appreciated. Thank you!

Code: [Select]

for ($i=1;$i<6;$i++){

if ($row['bef_remarks' . $i] !=  "Description"){
$row_.$i = 1;

Ok i know the default session timeout is set to 25 minues if they are idle, but will it still timeout if the are on a constant refresh page, like if the page there on refreshes every minute will they time out after the 25 still.

Hi,

 

I have a heavy php page that is timing out at 30 seconds. I do not have access to change/set any ini or max_execution_time or the like. I need to find some creative workaround. First, I looked at async calls, but I'm using Yii 1.1 at the moment and it didn't look like simple to implement when I had a quick glance at that. Is it possible to load the content via ajax instead?

I was wanting to make some kind of session timeout ability, just purely out of curiosity.

I have tried going off my own theory, before looking at any tutorials, well have looked a bit but tried getting the jist and having a go myself the next day (anyways that being said), this code he

Code: [Select]
<?php
ini_set('display_errors', 1);
session_name("jeremysmith_test_session");
session_start();

$_SESSION['start_time'] = time();

if($_SESSION['start_time'] < $_SESSION['start_time'] + 500) {
  printf("Time out be out dated!");
}
Just does not seem to want to work, is there any reason for this, that you could think of?

I appreciate any replies,
Jeremy.