Related
I have a question regarding the titled question. So, I'm attempting to create a program which passes data/requests for data between a program in C++ and a PHP site running off of an Apache web server.
I've been researching Socket communications, but I'm not understanding the concept. I understand how to create a socket in PHP, and another in c++, and I have them running using a test application. But only individually, not talking to each other OR talking to my web server (the PHP is not on the server at the moment, it is on a different server). So how does this work? From my understanding, you need one to be listening to a port number, and the other one to send something to that command.
Ideally, I would prefer not to use any libraries to help me achieve this. I know this question has been asked many times before, but I'm still getting nowhere.
Could someone provide an explanation of how the above works, or links to a question on here/elsewhere that may be of help? Or if there is a better method of doing this than using sockets? They will be talking to each other a lot, and speed maybe an issue.
Edit, further explanation:
Web server: I'm running an Apache web server. The PHP script is located on this server.
C++ Location: While testing, my c++ application is stored on the same Raspberry Pi that the web server is running on. In the real application, my C++ application will still be stored on the same device (but it won't be a Raspberry Pi - still Linux based though).
Communication: The PHP script will need to be triggered to do things by the C++ script, and vice versa. They will need to both need to pass data (common data structures, but they could be fairly large) each way (so both need to be able to send and receive data).
I think the easiest way is:
1) PHP -> C++ : tcp
2) C++ -> PHP : http
Will try to explain.
1) To take something from C++ app PHP connects to that app using stream_socket_client function. C++ app is listening on host and port using socket, bind and listen functions. As soon as connection arrives C++ app accept it and then in a separate std::thread serves it (recv to get request, send to send response). How to socket.
2) As PHP is working under Apache Web Server, I think the easiest way is use of libcurl library to make HTTP request from C++ app. How to curl.
Another approach could be SOAP or REST Web Services. On both sides, you could provide a SOAP Web Service to exchange data or to call remote functions. On C++-side, you could use Apache Axis to provide a SOAP Server. On PHP side, you can use the build-in SOAPServer class (http://php.net/manual/de/class.soapserver.php).
With SOAP you simply would exchange XML-based messages between both applications over HTTP / HTTPS. With this approch, both applications can trigger each other and exchange data.
Adding to the answer of Ben Schnarr, I think probably the most elegant and easy solution would be to make the C++ program a client for web services implemented in the PHP code. Using sockets directly would force you to have an additional protocol over it to represent the data being transmitted (unless the data is trivially simple, like a stream of ASCII text), which would be a bit like reinventing the wheel.
I'm partial to REST+JSON, because they are simple to implement and use, and very powerful. In contrast, SOAP is quite complex, heavy in resources, and brittle, especially if you use it with C++. One popular implementation I've already used, for instance, would force you to recompile your code every time you change the layout of any of the messages, even if the server is adding a field that the client won't use.
On the PHP side, it's quite easy - it already has all the infrastructure you need. On the C++ program, the minimum you'll need would be an HTTP client library and a JSON codec. I use libcurl for the first (by far the most popular) and jsoncpp for the latter, but there are other options for both. More recently, some libraries appeared with the whole package, but I hadn't had the chance to use them yet. Some examples:
restclient
REST SDK
Restbed
I recommend you to use Unix Sockets
For c++ check this: http://www.linuxhowtos.org/C_C++/socket.htm
For php check this: stream_socket_client
You can pass info internally from both processes.
Hope you can solve it, don't give up.
A SOAP solution could be something that solve the problem, but in my opinion it complicates a lot the application deployment.
You could go down a few levels and work directly with XML-RPC.
Here you have two interesting links, that shows how to implement the client and the server in both languages.
XML-RPC for C++
XML-RPC for PHP
There are other implementatios of XML-RPC for C++ (I have not used this approach with PHP, so I don't know others alternatives), don't stick with only one, try with others and use what you feel more comfortable with.
If you need some guidance on what stas told you then I suggest you look at
http://us2.php.net/manual-lookup.php?pattern=fsock&src={referrer:source?}
http://us2.php.net/manual-lookup.php?pattern=socket&src={referrer:source?}
In C++ you'll want to create a TCP listener that accepts commands (clearly you'll want to put some method of validation in),
then use PHP to open a connection (use fsock or socket your choice - fsock is easier), and write data to your C++ listener. It's ezpz
//updating with some example code
// protocol://ip, port, $errno, $errstr, $timeout
$fp = fsockopen("tcp://ip", 1337, $errno, $errstr, 30);
if(!$fp) die('failed connection or something');
//write something
fwrite($fp, "stuffs to write");
// get a reply?
while (!feof($fp)) {
echo fgets($fp, 128); // where 128 is size
}
I try to search on the Google about "Online multiplayer game" by using AS3 with PHP,because I'm going to develop Flash game that all the user can login and create his/her own character that they can walk around and Chat in the living room.
My Plan is
MySql sent User_Information to PHP then sent data to Flash (AS3) for display the information
(I try to use PHP because now I'm using PHP sever and I don't want to change it,Sorry for that)
MSQL > PHP > FLASH
I did some result from Google but I got AS3 with C#
https://playerio.com/documentation/tutorials/building-flash-multiplayer-games-tutorial/
and AS3 with JAVA
http://techylib.com/en/view/hihatclover/free_ebook_actionscript_3.0_for_multiplayer_game_and_virtual
so there are any way that I can use AS3 with PHP then MYSQL
I use AMFPHP (http://www.silexlabs.org/amfphp/) to talk to a remote server. It's free and super easy to install. Check out the documentation here (http://www.silexlabs.org/amfphp/documentation/)
There exist other MMO technologies for flash that scale much better than AMFPHP.
When building an MMO, consider how the backend will handle failure. Some level of failure from a really busy service is inevitable. The question is how many users are affected by a failure.
Scalability issues differ if the server side is a 'stateless' REST based protocol, or you are building a server that keeps state within server memory.
If you really put a load on AMFPHP, the AMF Serializer will drag the server's performance exponentially. It is simply not a linearly scalable algorithm to convert from Java to AMF serverside.
I've found that SmartFox Server (http://www.smartfoxserver.com/) is a good alternative (written in java) for multiplayer games. Its also extensible, using java. It works using Sockets, and the AMF serialization is done Client Side with the provided SmartFox ActionScript Library.
From a "quality of service" perspective, it would be intelligent to run multiple SmartFox processes on the server (running on different ports) and have each process only manage a few users. This way if a SmartFox process dies, the whole server ins't affected, only the few users being managed by that process.
A safe limit is < 15 users per process. In theory if your goal is to support 10000 simultaneous users on a server, you would have 667 SmartFox processes running on 667 different ports.
Of course this depends on the server side setup/logic, but in the simplest case, real-time MMO data from a client is simply replicated by SmartFox and broadcast to all the players connected to that process instance.
Remember, if you require further server logic, you can extend the SmartFox server with Java. But remember, the more you extend the Server, the more work is being done, and the less connections you can ultimately support (per server).
You can program Actionscript 3 in Flash Builder and it provides more advanced tools to consume PHP services, also Flash Builder is capable of generate the basic CRUD to consume these services using the Zend Framework, here is a basic tutorial for PHP programmers : http://corlan.org/flex-related/flex-for-php-developers/
also take a look here
http://www.adobe.com/es/products/flash-builder-php.html
I am working on a similar kind of game and I am using php to communicate with mysql as well.
The tutorial I am using is:
http://active.tutsplus.com/tutorials/actionscript/create-a-flash-login-system-using-php-and-mysql-part-1/
As for the playerio, I am also a bit confused.
There is a couple of multi player gaming servers are available.. my favorite one is SmartFoxServer 2x http://smartfoxserver.com/
however, you can develop a multiplayer game by using php and Flash as3 for that you have to create a PHP socket server program to handle Actionscript request. This can be achieved after you done creating PHP socket Server and you have to create socket connection from flash and connect to php socket server.
Kindly see this link for creating socket program in php :http://www.christophh.net/2012/07/24/php-socket-programming/
kindly refer this link for creating actionscript socket programming
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/ActionScript/3.0_ProgrammingAS3/WS5b3ccc516d4fbf351e63e3d118a9b90204-7cfb.html
I was thinking of implementing real time chat using a PHP backend, but I ran across this comment on a site discussing comet:
My understanding is that PHP is a
terrible language for Comet, because
Comet requires you to keep a
persistent connection open to each
browser client. Using mod_php this
means tying up an Apache child
full-time for each client which
doesn’t scale at all. The people I
know doing Comet stuff are mostly
using Twisted Python which is designed
to handle hundreds or thousands of
simultaneous connections.
Is this true? Or is it something that can be configured around?
Agreeing/expanding what has already been said, I don't think FastCGI will solve the problem.
Apache
Each request into Apache will use one worker thread until the request completes, which may be a long time for COMET requests.
This article on Ajaxian mentions using COMET on Apache, and that it is difficult. The problem isn't specific to PHP, and applies to any back-end CGI module you may want to use on Apache.
The suggested solution was to use the 'event' MPM module which changes the way requests are dispatched to worker threads.
This MPM tries to fix
the 'keep alive problem' in HTTP.
After a client completes the first
request, the client can keep the
connection open, and send further
requests using the same socket. This
can save signifigant overhead in
creating TCP connections. However,
Apache traditionally keeps an entire
child process/thread waiting for data
from the client, which brings its own
disadvantages. To solve this problem,
this MPM uses a dedicated thread to
handle both the Listening sockets, and
all sockets that are in a Keep Alive
state.
Unfortunately, that doesn't work either, because it will only 'snooze' after a request is complete, waiting for a new request from the client.
PHP
Now, considering the other side of the problem, even if you resolve the issue with holding up one thread per comet request, you will still need one PHP thread per request - this is why FastCGI won't help.
You need something like Continuations which allow the comet requests to be resumed when the event they are triggered by is observed. AFAIK, this isn't something that's possible in PHP. I've only seen it in Java - see the Apache Tomcat server.
Edit:
There's an article here about using a load balancer (HAProxy) to allow you to run both an apache server and a comet-enabled server (e.g. jetty, tomcat for Java) on port 80 of the same server.
You could use Nginx and JavaScript to implement a Comet based chat system that is very scalable with little memory or CPU utilization.
I have a very simple example here that can get you started. It covers compiling Nginx with the NHPM module and includes code for simple publisher/subscriber roles in jQuery, PHP, and Bash.
http://blog.jamieisaacs.com/2010/08/27/comet-with-nginx-and-jquery/
PHP
I found this funny little screencasts explaining simple comet. As a side note I really think this is going to kill your server on any real load. When just having a couple of users, I would say to just go for this solution. This solution is really simple to implement(screencasts only takes 5 minutes of your time :)). But as I was telling previously I don't think it is good for a lot of concurrent users(Guess you should benchmark it ;)) because:
It uses file I/O which is much slower then just getting data from memory. Like for example the functions filemtime(),
Second, but I don't think least PHP does not a have a decent thread model. PHP was not designed for this anyway because of the share nothing model. Like the slides says "Shared data is pushed down to the data-store layer" like for example MySQL.
Alternatives
I really think you should try the alternatives if you want to do any comet/long polling. You could use many languages like for example:
Java/JVM: Jetty continuations.
Python: Dustin's slosh.
Erlang: Popular language for comet/etc.
Lua, Ruby, C, Perl just to name a few.
Just performing a simple google search, will show you a lot alternatives also PHP(which I think on any big load will kill your server).
mod_php is not the only way to use PHP. You can use fastcgi. PHP must be compiled with --enable-fastcgi.
PHP as FastCGI: http://www.fastcgi.com/drupal/node/5?q=node/10
You may also try https://github.com/reactphp/react
React is a low-level library for event-driven programming in PHP. At its core is an event loop, on top of which it provides low-level utilities, such as: Streams abstraction, async dns resolver, network client/server, http client/server, interaction with processes. Third-party libraries can use these components to create async network clients/servers and more.
The event loop is based on the reactor pattern (hence the name) and strongly inspired by libraries such as EventMachine (Ruby), Twisted (Python) and Node.js (V8).
The introductory example shows a simple HTTP server listening on port 1337:
<?php
$i = 0;
$app = function ($request, $response) use (&$i) {
$i++;
$text = "This is request number $i.\n";
$headers = array('Content-Type' => 'text/plain');
$response->writeHead(200, $headers);
$response->end($text);
};
$loop = React\EventLoop\Factory::create();
$socket = new React\Socket\Server($loop);
$http = new React\Http\Server($socket);
$http->on('request', $app);
$socket->listen(1337);
$loop->run();
I'm having a similar issue. One option I'm finding interesting is to use an existing Comet server, like cometd-java or cometd-python, as the core message hub. Your PHP code is then just a client to the Comet server -- it can post or read messages from channels, just like other clients.
There's an interesting code snippet linked here: http://morglog.org/?p=22=1 that implements part of this method (although there are bits of debug code spread around, too).
I'm current implementing a scalable PHP Comet server using socket functions. It is called 'phet' ( [ph]p com[et] )
Project page: http://github.com/Tim-Smart/phet
Free free to join in on development. I have currently managed to get most of the server logic done, just need to finish off the client side stuff.
EDIT: Recently added 'Multi-threading' capabilities using the pcntl_fork method :)
You'll have a hard time implementing comet in PHP, just because of it's inherent single-threaded-ness.
Check out Websync On-Demand - the service lets you integrate PHP via server-side publishing, offloading the heavy concurrent connection stuff, and will let you create a real-time chat app in no time.
A new module just came out for the nginx web server that'll allow Comet with any language, including PHP.
http://www.igvita.com/2009/10/21/nginx-comet-low-latency-server-push/
You will have to create your own server in PHP. Using Apache/mod_php or even fastcgi will not scale at all. A few years old, but can get you started:
PHP-Comet-Server:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/comet/
I think this is more an issue that having a lot of apache threads running all the time is a problem. That will existing with any language if it works via apache in the same way as PHP (usually) does.
I want to create http socket connection for server in php for multiple client . how can I do that ? I need some resource .
First I was trying to create server in java .I create a server in java . And trying to reach from android application .But server can't find any client.But when I create client in java .It was working. How can I solve that problem ???
Take a look at this article:
Writing Socket Servers in PHP by Zend
Also give a try with Google:
http://www.google.com/search?aq=0&oq=php+socket+server+mul&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=php+socket+server+multiple+clients
Personally I think this would be a pretty bad idea, as already mentioned it lacks Threading and it's Socket support (imo) isn't really that adaptable.
The only plus side is that you can use fork to fork off another PHP process to handle a client, but you're getting very complex.
Another language would be much more suited for this type of development.
Note that even if you did do this in PHP, you'd probably have to rely on external services anyway, and possibly even end up writing at least some code in another language anyway.
You're trying to use PHP to do what? Mind you, I like PHP and work with it almost every day, but please do remember PHP in and on itself is based on request and response, and not very suitable for long running processes. In a manner of exercise, it might be interesting, but if you're trying to write a webserver from scratch using PHP, you might want to reconsider your choice of language.
That said, you can create a socket acting as a server, and listen to incoming packets. I do still think you're reinventing the wheel though.
though i love php and java, i wrote my socket servers in c++ running under lamp in an amazon ec2 cloud server. it is very, very simple to code and debug and safe and you can practically just copy/paste examples.
in the long run, i will probably develop a java solution because of portability and scalability, but the initial effort to get a c++ solution working is just so much less than implementing a java solution...
the first thing you must ascertain (find out) is whether your server allows you to open custom ports. amazon ec2 does and at this point in time (feb13), can be used for free for 12 months.
so, this is for you if you are in a hurry:
this here set of examples has all that you need to be up and running in no time.
Judging from the question title (the rest only makes it more confusing) you could use an existing package like http://pear.php.net/package/HTTP_Server to implement a webserver in PHP. It already contains all the socket code to accept client connections and stuff.
So what i have to do to find the server from different client
"Finding" is too broad a topic. Depends on your actual setting. On a LAN there are some protocols for discoverability. Otherwise you should just rely on a fixed machine name and port number for your instantiated server. You can connect to it as e.g. http://localhost:8007/ or whatever you've predefined.
I have been searching Google for a while, but the problem I am running into is I am not exactly sure what it is I need to be searching for. (Searching for PHP C++ communication doesn't seem to be what I need) I am basically developing a c++ plugin for a game server, and I would like to create a web interface that can pass/pull data to and from the C++ plugin. The game already uses an RCON port for remote administrative access, but I stumbled across a header for the Network interface they use, so I assume I could use this.
My problem is I am not very familiar with using sockets. I assume I will basically need to open a socket in C++ and leave it listening, and then in the PHP, connect to that socket, pass the data, and close it.
Here is the interface...
http://www.ampaste.net/m2f6b6dbc
I am mostly just going to be pulling information like current list of connected players, names, and scores. And passing commands to restart the server, shut it down, etc.
Any help would be great, thanks!
You could try Thrift. It was written by the engineers at Facebook, and it's now an Apache project.
Thrift is a software framework for scalable cross-language services development. It combines a software stack with a code generation engine to build services that work efficiently and seamlessly between C++, Java, Python, PHP, Ruby, Erlang, Perl, Haskell, C#, Cocoa, Smalltalk, and OCaml.
Link: http://incubator.apache.org/thrift/
In a nutshell it does exactly what you're trying to do. It makes it easy for different languages to communicate with each other. Rather than trying to come up with some socket based protocol for communication, you can call a function in PHP like this:
$game->getScores();
And it automatically plugs into a function named getScores in your C/C++ program. The only drawback is it can be a bit of a pain to configure correctly.
I'd dare to recommend to use some standard means of distributed components communication, for example, XML RPC. There are libraries for both PHP and C++: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML-RPC#Implementations
This approach will keep you from reinventing the wheel during communication protocol implementation, and will make further maintenance cheaper.
I assume I will basically need to open a socket in C++ and leave it listening
err, yes, that's the description I'd give to my 12 year-old daughter - but if you're going to have more than one client connecting its a bit more involved. Especially if you are bolting the code onto an existing server. So have a read of the socket programming FAQ.
You do need to define a protocol of how data will be represented when travelling across the socket. THere are lots of 'standard methods - but sometimes things like CORBA / SOAP etc can just be overkill and more effort than starting from scratch.
If you are bolting code ontp an existing server, life will be a lot simpler if you use the current socket and extend the protocol if necessary.
There are 3 models for writing a socket server - the code snippet you provided does not seem to include details of which you are currently working with:
forking server (may split threads rather than processes)
single-threaded server
socketless server
forking server
An instance of the server is started (call it p1), calling setsid()
p1 starts listening on the relevant socket
a client tries to connect
p1 forks to create p2
p2 then accepts the connection and starts conversing with the client
p1 continues to listen for further connections
p2 exits when the connection closes
There are variations of this - p2 may accept further connections, p1 might fork prior to a connection coming in)
single-threaded
An instance of the server is started, calling setsid()
it starts listening for a connection, and creates an array of the sockets in use (including the initial one)
socket_select() is used to identify activity from any of the sockets
when a client connects, the connection is accepted and added to an array of connections
whenever socket_select() returns activity on one of the sockets, the server generaets an appropriate response / closes the socket / binds the new connection
socketless server
some process (e.g. inetd) handles all the socket stuff
when a client connects, this other server starts an instance of your program and binds the socket I/O to the STDIN/STDOUT of your program
when your program exits, the other process closes the socket (if its still open) and handles the clean up (e.g. if it is implemented as a forking server, then the spawned process may end)
What it appears you want to google is C++ client / server. There are two approaches I could suggest here.
First, would be to make a very basic HTTP protocol server so that your php script can simply go to http://yourip/ and send your commands through the POST variables. You can find an example of a C++ Web Server at: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/175507/c-c-web-server-library
The second approach which allows a lot more flexibility is make up your own basic protocol and use PHP's SOCKETS to connect to the server and send commands. You can find an example of a C++ client / server application at http://www.codeproject.com/KB/IP/client_server_socket.aspx. Keep in mind, for the C++ end, you are only concerned about the Server part. You can find a basic PING client in PHP, using sockets, at the following URL: http://www.planet-source-code.com/vb/scripts/ShowCode.asp?lngWId=8&txtCodeId=1786. There are also classes out there to handle most of the protocol part, though I am not aware of any that work for both languages.
Please note I have not tested any of the codes I linked to. I simply found them on google.
A good place to start would be http://php.net/manual/en/book.sockets.php.
Basically, you're going to create another remote administration port and method for PHP to connect. Naturally, if your going to only be accepting web communication from one IP, that's a good way to secure it (check and allow access to only the one IP which will connect). However, you will need the C++ server to listen on a (secure?) port and have PHP connect to it (as long as host allows it).
So overall, if you already have a server running, this should be simple from the C++ side. All you need to do from the PHP side is really research connecting to different servers and passing information along (which PHP is more than capable of doing efficiently)
But, this is obviously an alternative to the poster up 2. I personally enjoy (in many cases) "reinventing the wheel" so to speak as to be able to manage my own work. But of course, that is not always efficient by cost or otherwise.
Good luck!