Does php execution stop after a user leaves the page?

by

It depends.

From http://us3.php.net/manual/en/features.connection-handling.php:

When a PHP script is running normally
the NORMAL state, is active. If the
remote client disconnects the ABORTED
state flag is turned on. A remote
client disconnect is usually caused by
the user hitting his STOP button.

You can decide whether or not you want
a client disconnect to cause your
script to be aborted. Sometimes it is
handy to always have your scripts run
to completion even if there is no
remote browser receiving the output.
The default behaviour is however for
your script to be aborted when the
remote client disconnects. This
behaviour can be set via the
ignore_user_abort php.ini directive as
well as through the corresponding
php_value ignore_user_abort Apache
httpd.conf directive or with the
ignore_user_abort() function.

That would seem to say the answer to your question is “Yes, the script will terminate if the user leaves the page”.

However realize that depending on the backend SAPI being used (eg, mod_php), php cannot detect that the client has aborted the connection until an attempt is made to send information to the client. If your long running script does not issue a flush() the script may keep on running even though the user has closed the connection.

Complicating things is even if you do issue periodic calls to flush(), having output buffering on will cause those calls to trap and won’t send them down to the client until the script completes anyway!

Further complicating things is if you have installed Apache handlers that buffer the response (for example mod_gzip) then once again php will not detect that the connection is closed and the script will keep on trucking.

Phew.

More Related Contents:

  1. How do I post multiple parameters to a URL
  2. Can anyone help me what is wrong in this code ajax using with php? [closed]
  3. I dont want the users to log in two times from WordPress and cakephp [closed]
  4. PHP display div with select option
  5. Send JavaScript variable to PHP variable [duplicate]
  6. Laravel csrf token mismatch for ajax POST Request
  7. PHP: running scheduled jobs (cron jobs)
  8. Redraw google chart based on user input via AJAX request
  9. Using Jquery Ajax to retrieve data from Mysql
  10. Sending JSON to PHP using ajax
  11. Change DIV content using ajax, php and jQuery
  12. How to load PHP file into DIV by jQuery?
  13. Sending images from Canvas elements using Ajax and PHP $_FILES
  14. Submitting JSON data via JQuery ajax.post to PHP
  15. Ajax push system
  16. Run Cron Job on PHP Script, on localhost in Windows
  17. How to run a cronjob every X minutes?
  18. How to set cron job URL for CodeIgniter?
  19. PHPExcel download using ajax call
  20. Do AJAX requests retain PHP Session info?
  21. Insert data through ajax into mysql database
  22. Can PHP detect if its run from a cron job or from the command line?
  23. Call PHP function from jQuery?
  24. Best way to periodically execute a PHP script?
  25. Cron Dispatcher CakePHP 2.0
  26. Prevent PHP script from being flooded
  27. Bash script to run php script
  28. allow cross domain ajax requests
  29. I want a pagination to my options page of wordpress plugin?
  30. Writing JSON object to .json file on server

Leave a Comment