Calling a PHP file from a PHP loop in background - php

Question

I have a PHP loop where i need to call another PHP file in the background to insert/update some information based on a variable send to it. I have tried to use CURL, but it does not seem to work.
I need it to call SQLupdate.php?symbol=$symbol - Is there another way of calling that PHP with the paramter in the background - and can it eventually be done Synchronously with a response back for each loop?
while(($row=mysqli_fetch_array($res)) and ($counter < $max))
{
$ch = curl_init();
$curlConfig = array(
CURLOPT_URL => "SQLinsert.php",
CURLOPT_POST => true,
CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => array(
'symbol' => $symbol,
)
);
curl_setopt_array($ch, $curlConfig);
$result = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
}

Answer 1

I'm going to weigh in down here in hopes of getting this one "away & done".
Although it isn't entirely clear from your post, it seems you're trying to call your PHP file via an HTTP(s) protocol.
In many configurations of PHP, you could do this and avoid some potential cURL overhead by using file_get_contents() instead:
while(($row=mysqli_fetch_array($res)) and ($counter < $max)) {
$postdata = http_build_query(
array(
'symbol' => $row['symbol']
)
);
$opts = array('http' =>
array(
'method' => 'POST',
'header' => 'Content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded',
'content' => $postdata
)
);
$context = stream_context_create($opts);
$result = file_get_contents('http://example.com/SQLinsert.php', false, $context);
$counter++; // you didn't mention this, but you don't want a everloop...
}
That's pretty much a textbook example copied from the manual, actually.
To use cURL instead, as you tried to do originally, and in truth it seems pretty clean with one call to curl_setopt() inside the loop:
$ch = curl_init();
$curlConfig = array(
CURLOPT_URL => "http://example.com/SQLinsert.php",
CURLOPT_POST => true,
CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true
);
curl_setopt_array($ch, $curlConfig);
while(($row=mysqli_fetch_array($res)) and ($counter < $max)) {
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, array('symbol' => $row['symbol']));
$result = curl_exec($ch);
$counter++; //see above
}
// do this *after* the loop
curl_close($ch);
Now the actual and original problem may be that $symbol isn't initialized; at least, it isn't in the example you have provided. I've attempted to fix this by using $row['symbol'] in both my examples. If this isn't the name of the column in the database then you would obviously need to use the correct name.
Finally, be advised that it's almost always better to access a secondary resource via the fastest available mechanism; if "SQLinsert.php" is local to the calling script, using HTTP(s) is going to be terribly under-performant, and you should rewrite both pieces of the system to work from a local (e.g. 'disk-based') point-of-view (which has already been recommended by a plethora of commenters):
//SQLinsert.php
function myInsert($symbol) {
// you've not given us any DB schema information ...
global $db; //hack, *cough*
$sql = "insert into `myTable` (symbol) values('$symbol')";
$res = $this->db->query($sql);
if ($res) return true;
return false;
}
//script.php
require_once("SQLinsert.php");
while(($row=mysqli_fetch_array($res)) and ($counter < $max)) {
$ins = myInsert($row['symbol']);
if ($ins) { // let's only count *good* inserts, which is possible
// because we've written 'myInsert' to return a boolean
$counter++;
}
}