php execute a background process

Question

I need to execute a directory copy upon a user action, but the directories are quite large, so I would like to be able to perform such an action without the user being aware

Answer 1

Here is a function to launch a background process in PHP. Finally created one that actually works on Windows too, after a lot of reading and testing different approaches and parameters.

function LaunchBackgroundProcess($command){
  // Run command Asynchroniously (in a separate thread)
  if(PHP_OS=='WINNT' || PHP_OS=='WIN32' || PHP_OS=='Windows'){
    // Windows
    $command = 'start "" '. $command;
  } else {
    // Linux/UNIX
    $command = $command .' /dev/null &';
  }
  $handle = popen($command, 'r');
  if($handle!==false){
    pclose($handle);
    return true;
  } else {
    return false;
  }
}

Note 1: On windows, do not use /B parameter as suggested elsewhere. It forces process to run the same console window as start command itself, resulting in the process being processed synchronously. To run the process in a separate thread (asynchronously), do not use /B.

Note 2: The empty double quotes after start "" are required if the command is a quoted path. start command interprets the first quoted parameter as window title.