system() command background process??

[hsmcdonald]

Hello all,

I have a mail function that sends parsed information to an employee distribution list. I was trying to setup a process where the admin can initiate a letter to this list, and basically run it as a background process.

To provide this functionality, I made a unique php script to handle the mail functions, and I call it from within the main script like something to the effect of:

[PHP]system("/usr/local/bin/php ./mail.php arg1 arg2 arg3 arg4 >> /tmp/1234log.log");[/PHP]

It was my understanding that redirecting the output to a file would allow the system command to run in the 'background' like a forked process while the main script completes.

I can confirm the mail.php script works file.. The /tmp/1234log.log is written fine, but the main script will wait until the mail.php script is completed its task before continuing... This is not what I wanted.

How do I run this command and allow the script to truly run as a background process while the main script continues to process?

Thanks in advance..

[pbmods]

Heya, hsmcdonald.

Add an ampersand at the end of the command string to execute it as a background process:

system("/usr/local/bin/php ./mail.php arg1 arg2 arg3 arg4 >> /tmp/1234log.log &");