The company I work for is currently doing this... using PHP in a retail environment, with a Linux server in every store, talking to the POS controller via a socket, storing data in a database (postgres), and processing retail transactions in real-time. And, sending results of those transactions to a central server (which isn't running Linux, PHP, or Apache). I'm finding the PHP socket support to be unreliable, though. Everything's fine when we have one socket open to talk to the store controller. I open the socket and bind to an address:port, the store controller connects to it just fine, and we move on. However, right now, we're using Postgres as a queue between two programs that are processing transactions. I'm trying to get rid of Postgres and use a pair of IPC sockets (created with socket_create_pair() and using pcntl_fork()). The IPC sockets seem to be totally unreliable, at this point. Sometimes, when I call socket_write(), the function just never returns. My application doesn't die.... but, the line of code immediately following the socket_write() function never gets executed in the parent process. The child process receives the data and logs it successfully. So, I know the socket_write function is getting called and doing something. It just never returns. Anyone here have any ideas? I can send more details, and even chunks of pertinent code. > -----Original Message----- > From: Robert Cummings [mailto:robert@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] > Sent: Tuesday, February 27, 2007 8:13 PM > To: Jay Blanchard > Cc: php-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxx > Subject: Re: operational musings > > On Tue, 2007-02-27 at 18:59 -0600, Jay Blanchard wrote: > > Howdy cats and kittens! > > > > I had an interesting thought after watching a demo of a POS > system and > > wondered if the same type of methodology could be applied in a PHP > > application. I haven't thought this all the way through, but a > > fully-hatched idea like this could signal a major change in > applications > > designed with PHP. > > > > In the POS if the network connectivity was lost the store > could continue > > to operate, once the network connectivity was restored the data from > > each store would sync back up and data would be sent to the central > > server, yadda, yadda, yadda. Of course this is in a client/server > > application with an executable residing on each workstation. > > > > So, if you wanted to do this with PHP you would likely have > to have a > > local web /database server (each store), establish a socket > (primary and > > store servers?) to watch for an outage/restore and then > write the code > > to support the sync up. Can it be done with PHP? It would > definitely be > > worth the trouble given the frequency that connections to stores get > > lost. > > Let's make a check list: > > local webserver -- check > local database server -- check > socket support -- check > write code -- check > > All signs point to YES :) > > Cheers, > Rob. > -- > .------------------------------------------------------------. > | InterJinn Application Framework - http://www.interjinn.com | > :------------------------------------------------------------: > | An application and templating framework for PHP. Boasting | > | a powerful, scalable system for accessing system services | > | such as forms, properties, sessions, and caches. InterJinn | > | also provides an extremely flexible architecture for | > | creating re-usable components quickly and easily. | > `------------------------------------------------------------' > > -- > PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) > To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php > > -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
