PHP calling external scripts

Question

I am creating an activity feed with PHP for individual and I'm moving on to creating group feeds.

so I have tables of

Table: Group Name 1. Group 1 2. Group 2 3. Group 3

Table: Members 1. Group 1 > Member 1, Member 2, Member 3, Member 4, Member 5 2. Group 2 > Member 3, Member 4, Member 5, Member 5....

Some groups have thousands of members. So when ever I publish a feed, I am doing something like the following.

$result = $this->db->query('SELECT member_id FROM members WHERE group_id = 1');
$members = $result->fetchAll();

foreach ($members as $member) {
$query = $this->db->prepare('INSERT INTO activity_feed (user_id, activity) VALUES(:user_id, :activity);

if ($result = $query->execute(array(
':user_id' => $member['member_id'],
':activity' => $activity
))) {
//do something
 $pusher->push(activity) //socket push notification
}
}

Inserting of personal feed only requires one mysql database insert, whereelse As you can see, for group feed the loop gets exponentially larger when the number of members increases.

I was thinking of populating the activity feed using a separate PHP file, and execute it when the activity occurs. How do I call that separate PHP file?

Is there a better idea to solve this problem?

If not I have to go through the loop everytime someone post a message to the group, or upload image to the group and then the PHP file takes along time to execute.

I think what you're looking for is a cron job. Also, don't prepare the query inside the foreach loop. That defeats half the purpose of using a prepared statement. Prepare once, execute many times. — miken32
– miken32, Commented Feb 12, 2017 at 22:53
Possible duplicate of How to schedule the execution of a PHP script on the server side? — miken32
– miken32, Commented Feb 12, 2017 at 22:54
@miken32 I understand cron job but cron job means I will not be able to notify the members instantly upon a event. — Someone Special
– Someone Special, Commented Feb 12, 2017 at 22:59
I'm thinking whether I can execute a external script like curl or whatever but allow me to return without waiting for the execution to finish — Someone Special
– Someone Special, Commented Feb 12, 2017 at 23:02
See this Link allinonescript.blogspot.com/2017/02/… helpful for you — Vadivel S
– Vadivel S, Commented Feb 16, 2017 at 12:30

miken32 · Accepted Answer · 2017-09-13 19:11:51Z

3

You can put your PHP code into a separate file, say dbnotify.php and then call it using exec():

<?php
$group = 1;
$activity = "foo";
exec("/path/to/dbnotify.php $group $activity &");

Note the & after the command, this puts it in the background and returns immediately.

Now in your external script, you want to read the values you passed on the command line and put them in the query. In addition, you can probably improve this database performance a lot by making the insert a single query:

#!/usr/bin/php
<?php
$groupid = $argv[1];
$activity = $argv[2];


$query = $this->db->prepare("INSERT INTO activity_feed (user_id, activity) SELECT member_id, :activity FROM members WHERE group_id = :group_id");
$result = $query->execute(array(":activity"=>$activity, ":group_id"=>$groupid));


$result = $this->db->query('SELECT member_id FROM members WHERE group_id = 1');
$members = $result->fetchAll();
foreach ($members as $member) {
    $pusher->push(activity); //socket push notification
}

edited Sep 13, 2017 at 19:11

answered Feb 12, 2017 at 23:22

miken32

42.5k16 gold badges127 silver badges177 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

1 Comment

Someone Special Over a year ago

Exactly what im looking for and thank you for the improved mysql insert tip.!

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

PHP calling external scripts

1 Answer 1

1 Comment

Your Answer

Linked

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

1 Answer 1

1 Comment

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Linked

Related