how to set Read timeout ?

Hi,

I am wanting to write an internet 'server' program. For ease, I want to use
PHP-CLI with XINET super server.
XINET communicates with the 'server' program via STDIN/STDOUT.

I'm not sure how to communicate with the client this way though.. I can open
stdin/out as a file, and use read and write operations, as if it were a
regular file.. however, how can I set read timeouts on file read operations?

Basically what I want is:

- send binary data to the client
- read binary data from client, but with a timeout of 1 second.

So I want a 'blocking' read operation, but one that doesn't block forever,
but times out.
I know how many bytes I expect when doing a read operation, so perferably I
tell the read operation how many bytes to read.. if it is not received
within x seconds, it should time out.

How can this be done in PHP?

I think I have seen examples where somehow the STDIN/OUT is communicated
with by using socket read/write operations, but I have no clue how this is
done.. the advantage would be that the socket timeout functions could be
used.

Lisa

Lisa Pearlson wrote:[color=blue]
> So I want a 'blocking' read operation, but one that doesn't block
> forever, but times out.
> I know how many bytes I expect when doing a read operation, so
> perferably I tell the read operation how many bytes to read.. if it
> is not received within x seconds, it should time out.
>
> How can this be done in PHP?
>[/color]

With PHP v > 4.3, you should be able to use stream_set_timeout for this:

http://www.php.net/stream_set_timeout


JW

Hi Lisa,

e.g.

set_time_limit(5); // 5seconds timeout for php

$start_time = time();
$valid_read = read_data("$filename"); /* return 0 on error, 1 if
succesful */
$end_time2 = time() - $start_time;
echo "total executution time = ".$end_time2;

Good luck !

Hans

"Lisa Pearlson" <no@spam.plz> wrote in message
news:4377b481$0$20646$e4fe514c@dreader14.news.xs4a ll.nl...[color=blue]
> Hi,
>
> I am wanting to write an internet 'server' program. For ease, I want to[/color]
use[color=blue]
> PHP-CLI with XINET super server.
> XINET communicates with the 'server' program via STDIN/STDOUT.
>
> I'm not sure how to communicate with the client this way though.. I can[/color]
open[color=blue]
> stdin/out as a file, and use read and write operations, as if it were a
> regular file.. however, how can I set read timeouts on file read[/color]
operations?[color=blue]
>
> Basically what I want is:
>
> - send binary data to the client
> - read binary data from client, but with a timeout of 1 second.
>
> So I want a 'blocking' read operation, but one that doesn't block forever,
> but times out.
> I know how many bytes I expect when doing a read operation, so perferably[/color]
I[color=blue]
> tell the read operation how many bytes to read.. if it is not received
> within x seconds, it should time out.
>
> How can this be done in PHP?
>
> I think I have seen examples where somehow the STDIN/OUT is communicated
> with by using socket read/write operations, but I have no clue how this is
> done.. the advantage would be that the socket timeout functions could be
> used.
>
> Lisa
>
>[/color]