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I want to run a relatively time consuming script based on some form input, but I'd rather not resort to cron, so I'm wondering if a php page requested through ajax will continue to execute until completion or if it will halt if the user leaves the page.
It doesn't actually output to the browser until a json_encode at the end of the file, so would everything before that still execute?
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The exit() function in PHP is an inbuilt function which is used to output a message and terminate the current script. The exit() function only terminates the execution of the script.
By default, the maximum execution time for PHP scripts is set to 30 seconds. If a script runs for longer than 30 seconds, PHP stops the script and reports an error. You can control the amount of time PHP allows scripts to run by changing the max_execution_time directive in your php. ini file.
When PHP receives the file it reads through it and executes any PHP code it can find. After it is done with the file, the PHP interpreter gives the output of the code, if any, back to Apache. When Apache gets the output back from PHP, it sends that output back to a browser which renders it to the screen.
There are two ways to run PHP files. The preferred way of running PHP files is within a web server like Apache, Nginx, or IIS—this allows you to run PHP scripts from your browser. That's how all PHP websites work!
It depends.
From http://us3.php.net/manual/en/features.connection-handling.php:
When a PHP script is running normally the NORMAL state, is active. If the remote client disconnects the ABORTED state flag is turned on. A remote client disconnect is usually caused by the user hitting his STOP button.
You can decide whether or not you want a client disconnect to cause your script to be aborted. Sometimes it is handy to always have your scripts run to completion even if there is no remote browser receiving the output. The default behaviour is however for your script to be aborted when the remote client disconnects. This behaviour can be set via the
ignore_user_abortphp.ini directive as well as through the correspondingphp_value ignore_user_abortApache httpd.conf directive or with theignore_user_abort()function.
That would seem to say the answer to your question is "Yes, the script will terminate if the user leaves the page".
However realize that depending on the backend SAPI being used (eg, mod_php), php cannot detect that the client has aborted the connection until an attempt is made to send information to the client. If your long running script does not issue a flush() the script may keep on running even though the user has closed the connection.
Complicating things is even if you do issue periodic calls to flush(), having output buffering on will cause those calls to trap and won't send them down to the client until the script completes anyway!
Further complicating things is if you have installed Apache handlers that buffer the response (for example mod_gzip) then once again php will not detect that the connection is closed and the script will keep on trucking.
Phew.
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It depends on your settings - usually it will stop but you can use ignore_user_abort() to make it carry on.
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