PHP 7.0.6 Released

ignore_user_abort

(PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7)

ignore_user_abortSet whether a client disconnect should abort script execution

Description

int ignore_user_abort ([ bool $value ] )

Sets whether a client disconnect should cause a script to be aborted.

When running PHP as a command line script, and the script's tty goes away without the script being terminated then the script will die the next time it tries to write anything, unless value is set to TRUE

Parameters

value

If set, this function will set the ignore_user_abort ini setting to the given value. If not, this function will only return the previous setting without changing it.

Return Values

Returns the previous setting, as an integer.

Examples

Example #1 A ignore_user_abort() example

<?php
// Ignore user aborts and allow the script
// to run forever
ignore_user_abort(true);
set_time_limit(0);

echo 
'Testing connection handling in PHP';

// Run a pointless loop that sometime 
// hopefully will make us click away from 
// page or click the "Stop" button.
while(1)
{
    
// Did the connection fail?
    
if(connection_status() != CONNECTION_NORMAL)
    {
        break;
    }

    
// Sleep for 10 seconds
    
sleep(10);
}

// If this is reached, then the 'break' 
// was triggered from inside the while loop

// So here we can log, or perform any other tasks
// we need without actually being dependent on the 
// browser.
?>

Notes

PHP will not detect that the user has aborted the connection until an attempt is made to send information to the client. Simply using an echo statement does not guarantee that information is sent, see flush().

See Also

User Contributed Notes

spiritual-coder at spiritual-coder dot com
9 years ago
If you want to simulate a crontask you must call this script once and it will keep running forever (during server uptime) in the background while "doing something" every specified seconds (= $interval):

<?php
ignore_user_abort
(1); // run script in background
set_time_limit(0); // run script forever
$interval=60*15; // do every 15 minutes...
do{
  
// add the script that has to be ran every 15 minutes here
   // ...
  
sleep($interval); // wait 15 minutes
}while(true);
?>
lukas dot starecek at centrum dot cz
6 years ago
Comment from Anonymous is not 100% valid. Time from sleep function is not counted to execution time because sleep delays program execution (see http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.sleep.php and comments). We tested it and it's true. Try this:

<?php

set_time_limit
(2);
sleep(4);
echo
'hi!';
sleep(4);
echo
'bye bye!';

?>

It means, that if the loop most of the time will be at sleep (and in this case it probably be), then this script may be active for months or years even if you set time limit to one day.
Charlie Brown
1 year ago
If running a long process and the browser often close the connection, then use this function.
Anonymous
6 years ago
use the spiritual-coder's code below with exreme caution and do not use it unless you are an advanced user.

first of all, such a code with no bypass point can cause infinite loops and ghost threads in server. there must be a trick to break out the loop.

i.e. you can use  if (file_exists(dirname(__FILE__)."stop.txt")) break; in the loop so if you create "stop.txt", she script will stop execution.

also if you use set_time_limit(86400); instead of set_time_limit(0); your script will stop after one day.
Micke
1 year ago
It seems that this function does not work for IIS servers.

A detailed description can be found on the PHP Bug Tracking System:
https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=60586#1378935714
plamen at pulsator dot com
15 years ago
The script should output something to the browser in order to abort. If there is no output the script keeps on running.
phpguy92135 at yahoo dot com
6 years ago
Theres no point in sending anything to the browser if the user does abort.  Since the user aborted, the browser wont listen even if PHP did send information to the browser.

If you want to see if the user did abort, then use error_log() or some other form of logging to find out what happened, but dont rely on the output to the browser as the only method of checking ones data.
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