PHP Data Processing Failing With Ambiguous Error - php

Question

The user requests a Product Category and says what quantity they want of it, ie Sugar 7 lbs.
In the search results, from the database, I have the following items (which are each different products):
Sugar, 8 oz .75
Sugar, 1 lb 1.50
Sugar, 2 lb 4.00
Sugar, 5 lb 7.00
Sugar, 10 lb 11.00
Current process:
Get the search results
Check for the cheapest option for any one of the results (only 10 lbs would meet it) or multiples of one of the results (however many of 1 needed to match the criteria, so 7 X 1 lb)
Put the individual product ids into an array
Get the 1:1 permutations, but within that, use some code to add in up to 3 repeats (because 5 lbs + 2 X 1 lbs is the cheapest option, not 5 lbs + 2 lbs)
In this, check for different quantity unit (oz vs lb) and be able to convert and compare
Compare for cheapest and return cheapest
I'm even disregarding where there are more than 6 elements in the permutation to weed out unlikely options and reduce overhead
This works FINE unless there are > 9 product ids (for some I have > 25), then I get this error in the logs (and a completely unrelated error in the browser): Premature end of script headers
This is a lot of code. I'm sorry, just want to be thorough! Is there a more efficient/effective way?
function processCombos($arr, $qty_search, $qty_unit_search){ //$arr is the dataset, $qty_search is 7, $qty_unit_search is 1 for lbs
$combo=array();
$pid_arr = arrayifyProductIDs($arr);
$count = count($pid_arr);
$members = pow(2,$count);
for ($i = 0; $i < $members; $i++) {
$b = sprintf("%0".$count."b",$i);
$out = array();
for ($j = 0; $j < $count; $j++) {
if ($b{$j} == '1'){
$out[] = $pid_arr[$j];
}
}
$minLength=2;
$out_max = count($out);
if ($out_max >= $minLength) {
// now add in different repeats of each of them
$repeat_max = 3;
$indiv = array();
for($k=0;$k<$out_max;$k++){
$tmp = array();
for ($r = 0; $r < $repeat_max; $r++) $tmp[$r] = array_fill(0, $r + 1, $out[$k]);
$indiv[] = $tmp;
}
$x_ct = count($indiv[0]);
$y_ct = count($indiv[1]);
$z_ct = count($indiv[2]) > 0 ? count($indiv[2]): 0;
$perm = array();
for($x=0;$x<$x_ct;$x++){
for($y=0;$y<$y_ct;$y++){
if($z_ct > 0){
for($z=0;$z<$z_ct;$z++){
$perm = array_merge($indiv[0][$x],$indiv[1][$y],$indiv[2][$z]);
}
}else{
$perm = array_merge($indiv[0][$x],$indiv[1][$y]);
}
$p=0;
$max_p=count($perm);
if($max_p >=7){
}else{
$product_ids = array();
$qty = 0;
$price = 0;
while($p < $max_p){
$product_id = $perm[$p];
$data = $arr[$product_id];
if(!$data['qty_unit_id'] OR !$data['qty']){continue;} // go to the next one if it doens't have qty or qty_unit
if($data['qty_unit_id'] == $qty_unit_search){
$product_ids[] = $product_id;
$qty += $data['qty'];
$price += $data['price'];
}else{
$unit_to_convert_data = getQtyUnitName($qty_unit_search);
$unit_to_convert = $unit_to_convert_data['abbr'];
$unit_to_convert_type = $unit_to_convert_data['conv_file'];
if($unit_to_convert_type == $data['conv_file']){
if($data['conv_file'] == "Mass"){
$product_conv = new PhpUnitsOfMeasure\PhysicalQuantity\Mass($data['qty'], $data['qty_unit']);
}else{
$product_conv = new PhpUnitsOfMeasure\PhysicalQuantity\Volume($data['qty'], $data['qty_unit']);
}
$data['qty_CONV'] = number_format($product_conv->toUnit($unit_to_convert),3,".",",");
$product_ids[] = $product_id;
$qty += $data['qty_CONV'];
$price += $data['price'];
}
}
$p++;
}
if(count($combo)==0 AND $qty >= $qty_search){
$combo = array('product_ids' => $product_ids, 'qty' => $qty, 'price' => $price);
}elseif(($qty >= $qty_search AND $price < $combo['price']) OR
($qty >= $qty_search AND $price == $combo['price'] AND $qty > $combo['qty'])){
$combo = array('product_ids' => $product_ids, 'qty' => $qty, 'price' => $price);
}else{
}
}/// i think it should go here
}
}
}
}
return $combo;
}

Answer 1

Premature end of script headers usually means your script is killed before sending headers to the web server due to a resource limit in RLimitCPU and RLimitMEM directives in the httpd.conf. Either change these directives to allow more CPU and memory to your applications or write more efficient code (3 for loops means processing record^3 times the block inside it. consider rewriting it.)