It's simpler than I initially thought.. Basically you have a page that does nothing, until the data you want to send is available (say, a new message arrives).
Here is a really basic example, which sends a simple string after 2-10 seconds. 1 in 3 chance of returning an error 404 (to show error handling in the coming Javascript example)
msgsrv.php
<?php
if(rand(1,3) == 1){
/* Fake an error */
header("HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found");
die();
}
/* Send a string after a random number of seconds (2-10) */
sleep(rand(2,10));
echo("Hi! Have a random number: " . rand(1,10));
?>
Note: With a real site, running this on a regular web-server like Apache will quickly tie up all the "worker threads" and leave it unable to respond to other requests.. There are ways around this, but it is recommended to write a "long-poll server" in something like Python's twisted, which does not rely on one thread per request. cometD is an popular one (which is available in several languages), and Tornado is a new framework made specifically for such tasks (it was built for FriendFeed's long-polling code)... but as a simple example, Apache is more than adequate! This script could easily be written in any language (I chose Apache/PHP as they are very common, and I happened to be running them locally)
Then, in Javascript, you request the above file (msg_srv.php
), and wait for a response. When you get one, you act upon the data. Then you request the file and wait again, act upon the data (and repeat)
What follows is an example of such a page.. When the page is loaded, it sends the initial request for the msgsrv.php
file.. If it succeeds, we append the message to the #messages
div, then after 1 second we call the waitForMsg function again, which triggers the wait.
The 1 second setTimeout()
is a really basic rate-limiter, it works fine without this, but if msgsrv.php
always returns instantly (with a syntax error, for example) - you flood the browser and it can quickly freeze up. This would better be done checking if the file contains a valid JSON response, and/or keeping a running total of requests-per-minute/second, and pausing appropriately.
If the page errors, it appends the error to the #messages
div, waits 15 seconds and then tries again (identical to how we wait 1 second after each message)
The nice thing about this approach is it is very resilient. If the clients internet connection dies, it will timeout, then try and reconnect - this is inherent in how long polling works, no complicated error-handling is required
Anyway, the long_poller.htm
code, using the jQuery framework:
<html>
<head>
<title>BargePoller</title>
<script src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.2.6/jquery.min.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script>
<style type="text/css" media="screen">
body{ background:#000;color:#fff;font-size:.9em; }
.msg{ background:#aaa;padding:.2em; border-bottom:1px #000 solid}
.old{ background-color:#246499;}
.new{ background-color:#3B9957;}
.error{ background-color:#992E36;}
</style>
<script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8">
function addmsg(type, msg){
/* Simple helper to add a div.
type is the name of a CSS class (old/new/error).
msg is the contents of the div */
$("#messages").append(
"<div class='msg "+ type +"'>"+ msg +"</div>"
);
}
function waitForMsg(){
/* This requests the url "msgsrv.php"
When it complete (or errors)*/
$.ajax({
type: "GET",
url: "msgsrv.php",
async: true, /* If set to non-async, browser shows page as "Loading.."*/
cache: false,
timeout:50000, /* Timeout in ms */
success: function(data){ /* called when request to barge.php completes */
addmsg("new", data); /* Add response to a .msg div (with the "new" class)*/
setTimeout(
waitForMsg, /* Request next message */
1000 /* ..after 1 seconds */
);
},
error: function(XMLHttpRequest, textStatus, errorThrown){
addmsg("error", textStatus + " (" + errorThrown + ")");
setTimeout(
waitForMsg, /* Try again after.. */
15000); /* milliseconds (15seconds) */
}
});
};
$(document).ready(function(){
waitForMsg(); /* Start the inital request */
});
</script>
</head>
<body>
<div id="messages">
<div class="msg old">
BargePoll message requester!
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>
There are different ways to delete an array element, where some are more useful for some specific tasks than others.
Deleting a single array element
If you want to delete just one array element you can use unset()
or alternatively \array_splice()
.
If you know the value and don’t know the key to delete the element you can use \array_search()
to get the key. This only works if the element does not occur more than once, since \array_search
returns the first hit only.
Note that when you use unset()
the array keys won’t change. If you want to reindex the keys you can use \array_values()
after unset()
, which will convert all keys to numerically enumerated keys starting from 0.
Code:
$array = [0 => "a", 1 => "b", 2 => "c"];
unset($array[1]);
// ↑ Key which you want to delete
Output:
[
[0] => a
[2] => c
]
If you use \array_splice()
the keys will automatically be reindexed, but the associative keys won’t change — as opposed to \array_values()
, which will convert all keys to numerical keys.
\array_splice()
needs the offset, not the key, as the second parameter.
Code:
$array = [0 => "a", 1 => "b", 2 => "c"];
\array_splice($array, 1, 1);
// ↑ Offset which you want to delete
Output:
[
[0] => a
[1] => c
]
array_splice()
, same as unset()
, take the array by reference. You don’t assign the return values of those functions back to the array.
Deleting multiple array elements
If you want to delete multiple array elements and don’t want to call unset()
or \array_splice()
multiple times you can use the functions \array_diff()
or \array_diff_key()
depending on whether you know the values or the keys of the elements which you want to delete.
If you know the values of the array elements which you want to delete, then you can use \array_diff()
. As before with unset()
it won’t change the keys of the array.
Code:
$array = [0 => "a", 1 => "b", 2 => "c", 3 => "c"];
$array = \array_diff($array, ["a", "c"]);
// └────────┘
// Array values which you want to delete
Output:
[
[1] => b
]
If you know the keys of the elements which you want to delete, then you want to use \array_diff_key()
. You have to make sure you pass the keys as keys in the second parameter and not as values. Keys won’t reindex.
Code:
$array = [0 => "a", 1 => "b", 2 => "c"];
$array = \array_diff_key($array, [0 => "xy", "2" => "xy"]);
// ↑ ↑
// Array keys which you want to delete
Output:
[
[1] => b
]
If you want to use unset()
or \array_splice()
to delete multiple elements with the same value you can use \array_keys()
to get all the keys for a specific value and then delete all elements.
Best Answer
Somewhat surprisingly, PHP's imap library can be also used for working with POP3 mailboxes. Most of the advanced IMAP features won't work, of course (e.g. folders or fetching message parts), but the basic POP3 functionality is implemented.
The main difference is the option string that you're passing to imap_open - to quote that page:
Other than that, it's fair sailing - you won't need more than imap_open, imap_num_msg, imap_body, imap_delete and imap_close for basic POP3 access.