Can PHP asynchronously use sockets?

Question

Typical PHP socket functionality is synchronous, and halts the thread when waiting for incoming connections and data. (eg. socket_read and socket_listen)

How do I do the same asynchronously? so I can respond to data in a data received event, instead of polling for data, etc.

Answer 1

Yup, that's what socket_set_nonblock() is for. Your socket interaction code will need to be written differently, taking into account the special meanings that error codes 11, EWOULDBLOCK, and 115, EINPROGRESS, assume.

Here's some somewhat-fictionalized sample code from a PHP sync socket polling loop, as requested:

$buf = '';
$done = false;
do {
    $chunk = socket_read($sock, 4096);
    if($chunk === false) {
        $error = socket_last_error($sock);
        if($error != 11 && $error != 115) {
            my_error_handler(socket_strerror($error), $error);
            $done = true;
        }
        break;
    } elseif($chunk == '') {
        $done = true;
        break;
    } else { 
        $buf .= $chunk;
    }
} while(true);