I was looking for some solution in PHP, where I could execute a script without waiting for a function that processes delayed things to be expected to finish executing it.
I came across the pcntl_fork function. I saw that it creates a parallel process, but I do not quite understand what it does.
Could anyone give me details of this function?
I came across the
pcntl_forkfunction. I saw that it creates a process parallel, but I do not quite understand what it does.
No, there was a misunderstanding in your interpretation. The pcntl_fork function does not create a parallel process, it forks the process and splits it into parent processes - > children.
It returns, on success, PID of thread pai and 0 to PID of filhos . In the documentation there is a simple example of how it works:
$pid = pcntl_fork();
if ($pid == -1) {
die('could not fork');
} else if ($pid) {
// Processo pai
pcntl_wait($status); // Protege contra processos zumbis
} else {
// Processos filhos
}
As this answer in SOen , there are some advantages / disadvantages:
File descriptors and Database Conections are shared and this can cause problems frequently. For example: Connections to DB must be re-created every time a process is forked. pai processes must wait for the filhos processes to finish or the process will be left "zombies" running. Remembering that PHP is a scripting language and that "parallel" programming can be a nightmare and difficult to maintain.