Multi-threading is possible in php

Yes you can do multi-threading in PHP with pthreads

From the PHP documentation:

pthreads is an object-orientated API that provides all of the tools needed for multi-threading in PHP. PHP applications can create, read, write, execute and synchronize with Threads, Workers and Threaded objects.

Warning: The pthreads extension cannot be used in a web server environment. Threading in PHP should therefore remain to CLI-based applications only.

Simple Test

#!/usr/bin/php
<?php
class AsyncOperation extends Thread {

    public function __construct($arg) {
        $this->arg = $arg;
    }

    public function run() {
        if ($this->arg) {
            $sleep = mt_rand(1, 10);
            printf('%s: %s  -start -sleeps %d' . "\n", date("g:i:sa"), $this->arg, $sleep);
            sleep($sleep);
            printf('%s: %s  -finish' . "\n", date("g:i:sa"), $this->arg);
        }
    }
}

// Create a array
$stack = array();

//Initiate Multiple Thread
foreach ( range("A", "D") as $i ) {
    $stack[] = new AsyncOperation($i);
}

// Start The Threads
foreach ( $stack as $t ) {
    $t->start();
}

?>

First Run

12:00:06pm:     A  -start -sleeps 5
12:00:06pm:     B  -start -sleeps 3
12:00:06pm:     C  -start -sleeps 10
12:00:06pm:     D  -start -sleeps 2
12:00:08pm:     D  -finish
12:00:09pm:     B  -finish
12:00:11pm:     A  -finish
12:00:16pm:     C  -finish

Second Run

12:01:36pm:     A  -start -sleeps 6
12:01:36pm:     B  -start -sleeps 1
12:01:36pm:     C  -start -sleeps 2
12:01:36pm:     D  -start -sleeps 1
12:01:37pm:     B  -finish
12:01:37pm:     D  -finish
12:01:38pm:     C  -finish
12:01:42pm:     A  -finish

Real World Example

error_reporting(E_ALL);
class AsyncWebRequest extends Thread {
    public $url;
    public $data;

    public function __construct($url) {
        $this->url = $url;
    }

    public function run() {
        if (($url = $this->url)) {
            /*
             * If a large amount of data is being requested, you might want to
             * fsockopen and read using usleep in between reads
             */
            $this->data = file_get_contents($url);
        } else
            printf("Thread #%lu was not provided a URL\n", $this->getThreadId());
    }
}

$t = microtime(true);
$g = new AsyncWebRequest(sprintf("http://www.google.com/?q=%s", rand() * 10));
/* starting synchronization */
if ($g->start()) {
    printf("Request took %f seconds to start ", microtime(true) - $t);
    while ( $g->isRunning() ) {
        echo ".";
        usleep(100);
    }
    if ($g->join()) {
        printf(" and %f seconds to finish receiving %d bytes\n", microtime(true) - $t, strlen($g->data));
    } else
        printf(" and %f seconds to finish, request failed\n", microtime(true) - $t);
}

Create a function that you want the thread to execute, eg:

void task1(std::string msg)
{
    std::cout << "task1 says: " << msg;
}

Now create the thread object that will ultimately invoke the function above like so:

std::thread t1(task1, "Hello");

(You need to #include <thread> to access the std::thread class)

The constructor's arguments are the function the thread will execute, followed by the function's parameters. The thread is automatically started upon construction.

If later on you want to wait for the thread to be done executing the function, call:

t1.join(); 

(Joining means that the thread who invoked the new thread will wait for the new thread to finish execution, before it will continue its own execution).

The Code

#include <string>
#include <iostream>
#include <thread>

using namespace std;

// The function we want to execute on the new thread.
void task1(string msg)
{
    cout << "task1 says: " << msg;
}

int main()
{
    // Constructs the new thread and runs it. Does not block execution.
    thread t1(task1, "Hello");

    // Do other things...

    // Makes the main thread wait for the new thread to finish execution, therefore blocks its own execution.
    t1.join();
}

More information about std::thread here

• On GCC, compile with -std=c++0x -pthread.
• This should work for any operating-system, granted your compiler supports this (C++11) feature.