What best practices should be followed when handling child processes in PHP to avoid timeouts and ensure proper execution?

When handling child processes in PHP, it is important to set appropriate timeout limits to avoid the script running indefinitely and potentially causing performance issues. One way to ensure proper execution is to use functions like `pcntl_alarm()` to set a timeout for the child process. This allows the parent process to continue executing even if the child process exceeds the specified time limit. 

// Set a timeout limit for the child process
$timeout = 30; // 30 seconds
pcntl_alarm($timeout);

// Fork a child process
$pid = pcntl_fork();

if ($pid == -1) {
    // Error handling for forking process
    die('Could not fork process');
} elseif ($pid) {
    // Parent process
    pcntl_wait($status); // Wait for the child process to finish
} else {
    // Child process
    // Perform tasks here
    sleep(10); // Simulate a long-running task
    exit(0);
}

// Reset the alarm after child process finishes
pcntl_alarm(0);

Keywords

child processes timeouts proper execution PHP functions error handling

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