How can socket_select() be used in PHP to handle non-blocking sockets more efficiently?

When dealing with non-blocking sockets in PHP, using socket_select() can efficiently handle multiple sockets without blocking the script. By passing an array of sockets to socket_select() along with a timeout value, the function will return the sockets that are ready for reading, writing, or have errors. This allows the script to continue executing while waiting for socket events, improving performance and responsiveness.

$socket = socket_create(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, SOL_TCP);
socket_connect($socket, '127.0.0.1', 8080);

$sockets = [$socket];
$null = null;

while (true) {
    $readSockets = $sockets;
    $writeSockets = $exceptSockets = $null;

    if (socket_select($readSockets, $writeSockets, $exceptSockets, 0) > 0) {
        foreach ($readSockets as $readSocket) {
            // Handle reading from socket
        }
    }

    // Continue with other script logic
}