set_time_limit

(PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)

set_time_limitBeschränkt die maximale Ausführungszeit

Beschreibung

set_time_limit(int $seconds): bool

Legt die Zeit in Sekunden fest, die ein Skript laufen darf. Ist diese Zeit abgelaufen, wird ein schwerwiegender Fehler zurückgegeben. Der Standard liegt bei 30 Sekunden, es sei denn max_execution_time wurde in php.ini gesetzt.

Wenn set_time_limit() aufgerufen wird, dann startet der Zähler neu. Das heißt, wenn die Standardeinstellung 30 Sekunden beträgt und nach 25 Sekunden durch ein Skript ein Aufruf wie z. B. set_time_limit(20) erfolgt, darf das Skript insgesamt 45 Sekunden laufen, bevor eine Fehlermeldung ausgegeben wird.

Parameter-Liste

seconds

Die maximale Ausführungszeit in Sekunden oder 0, wenn die Ausführungszeit nicht limitiert werden soll.

Rückgabewerte

Gibt im Erfolgsfall true zurück oder false bei einem Fehler.

Anmerkungen

Hinweis:

Die Funktion set_time_limit() und die Konfigurationsdirektive max_execution_time beschränken nur die Ausführungszeit des Skripts selbst. Die Zeit, die für Aktivitäten außerhalb des Skripts aufgebracht wird, wie z. B. die Ausführung von Systemaufrufen mit system(), Streamoperationen, Datenbankabfragen usw., wird nicht in die Berechnung der Ausführungszeit mit einbezogen.

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User Contributed Notes 25 notes

up
27
mba_aslam at yahoo dot com
17 years ago
while setting the set_time_limit(), the duration of sleep() will be ignored in the execution time. The following illustrates:

<?php

set_time_limit
(20);

while (
$i<=10)
{
        echo
"i=$i ";
       
sleep(100);
       
$i++;
}

?>

Output:
i=0 i=1 i=2 i=3 i=4 i=5 i=6 i=7 i=8 i=9 i=10
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19
kexianbin at diyism dot com
9 years ago
Both set_time_limit(...) and  ini_set('max_execution_time',...); won't count the time cost of sleep,file_get_contents,shell_exec,mysql_query etc, so i build this function my_background_exec(), to run static method/function in background/detached process and time is out kill it:

my_exec.php:
<?php
function my_background_exec($function_name, $params, $str_requires, $timeout=600)
         {
$map=array('"'=>'\"', '$'=>'\$', '`'=>'\`', '\\'=>'\\\\', '!'=>'\!');
         
$str_requires=strtr($str_requires, $map);
         
$path_run=dirname($_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME']);
         
$my_target_exec="/usr/bin/php -r \"chdir('{$path_run}');{$str_requires} \\\$params=json_decode(file_get_contents('php://stdin'),true);call_user_func_array('{$function_name}', \\\$params);\"";
         
$my_target_exec=strtr(strtr($my_target_exec, $map), $map);
         
$my_background_exec="(/usr/bin/php -r \"chdir('{$path_run}');{$str_requires} my_timeout_exec(\\\"{$my_target_exec}\\\", file_get_contents('php://stdin'), {$timeout});\" <&3 &) 3<&0";//php by default use "sh", and "sh" don't support "<&0"
         
my_timeout_exec($my_background_exec, json_encode($params), 2);
         }

function
my_timeout_exec($cmd, $stdin='', $timeout)
         {
$start=time();
         
$stdout='';
         
$stderr='';
         
//file_put_contents('debug.txt', time().':cmd:'.$cmd."\n", FILE_APPEND);
          //file_put_contents('debug.txt', time().':stdin:'.$stdin."\n", FILE_APPEND);

         
$process=proc_open($cmd, [['pipe', 'r'], ['pipe', 'w'], ['pipe', 'w']], $pipes);
          if (!
is_resource($process))
             {return array(
'return'=>'1', 'stdout'=>$stdout, 'stderr'=>$stderr);
             }
         
$status=proc_get_status($process);
         
posix_setpgid($status['pid'], $status['pid']);    //seperate pgid(process group id) from parent's pgid

         
stream_set_blocking($pipes[0], 0);
         
stream_set_blocking($pipes[1], 0);
         
stream_set_blocking($pipes[2], 0);
         
fwrite($pipes[0], $stdin);
         
fclose($pipes[0]);

          while (
1)
                {
$stdout.=stream_get_contents($pipes[1]);
                
$stderr.=stream_get_contents($pipes[2]);

                 if (
time()-$start>$timeout)
                    {
//proc_terminate($process, 9);    //only terminate subprocess, won't terminate sub-subprocess
                    
posix_kill(-$status['pid'], 9);    //sends SIGKILL to all processes inside group(negative means GPID, all subprocesses share the top process group, except nested my_timeout_exec)
                     //file_put_contents('debug.txt', time().":kill group {$status['pid']}\n", FILE_APPEND);
                    
return array('return'=>'1', 'stdout'=>$stdout, 'stderr'=>$stderr);
                    }

                
$status=proc_get_status($process);
                
//file_put_contents('debug.txt', time().':status:'.var_export($status, true)."\n";
                
if (!$status['running'])
                    {
fclose($pipes[1]);
                    
fclose($pipes[2]);
                    
proc_close($process);
                     return
$status['exitcode'];
                    }

                
usleep(100000);
                }
         }
?>

a_class.php:
<?php
class A
{
    static function
jack($a, $b)
           {
sleep(4);
           
file_put_contents('debug.txt', time().":A::jack:".$a.' '.$b."\n", FILE_APPEND);
           
sleep(15);
           }
}
?>

test.php:
<?php
require 'my_exec.php';

my_background_exec('A::jack', array('hello', 'jack'), 'require "my_exec.php";require "a_class.php";', 8);
?>
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16
cweiske at cweiske dot de
15 years ago
To get the currently used time, use getrusage()
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10
AtlantisNet
15 years ago
In IIS, there is another global timeout setting which will override any PHP settings.  You can alter this timeout by following the following instructions:

http://www.iisadmin.co.uk/?p=7
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11
eric pecoraro at shepard com
18 years ago
I was having trouble with script timeouts in applications where the user prompted long running background actions. I wrote this cURL/CLI background script that solved the problem when making requests from HTTP.

<?php

/* BACKGROUND CLI 1.0
  
   eric pecoraro _at_ shepard dot com - 2005-06-02
   Use at your own risk. No warranties expressed or implied.

   Include this file at the top of any script to run it in the background
   with no time limitations ... e.g., include('background_cli.php');
  
   The script that calls this file should not return output to the browser.
*/
#  REQUIREMENTS - cURL and CLI
  
if ( !function_exists('curl_setopt') OR !function_exists('curl_setopt')  ) {
      echo
'Requires cURL and CLI installations.' ; exit ;
   }
  
#  BUILD PATHS
  
$script = array_pop(explode('/',$SCRIPT_NAME)) ;
  
$script_dir = substr($SCRIPT_NAME,0,strlen($SCRIPT_NAME)-strlen($script)) ;
  
$scriptURL = 'http://'. $HTTP_HOST . $script_dir . "$script" ;
  
$curlURL = 'http://'. $HTTP_HOST . $script_dir . "$script?runscript=curl" ;

#  Indicate that script is being called by CLI
  
if ( php_sapi_name() == 'cli' ) {
     
$CLI = true ;
   }

#  Action if script is being called by cURL_prompt()
  
if ( $runscript == 'curl' ) {
     
$cmd = "/usr/local/bin/php ".$PATH_TRANSLATED ; // server location of script to run
     
exec($cmd) ;
      exit;
   }

#  USER INTERFACE
   // User answer after submission.
  
if ( $post ) {
     
cURL_prompt($curlURL) ;
      echo
'<div style="margin:25px;"><title>Background CLI</title>';
      echo
'O.K. If all goes well, <b>'.$script.'</b> is working hard in the background with no ' ;
      echo
'timeout limitations. <br><br><form action='.$scriptURL.' method=GET>' ;
      echo
'<input type=submit value=" RESET BACKGROUND CLI "></form></div>' ;
      exit ;
   }
  
// Start screen.
  
if ( !$CLI AND !$runscript ) {
      echo
'<title>Background CLI</title><div style="margin:25px;">' ;
      echo
'<form action='.$scriptURL.' method=POST>' ;
      echo
'Click to run <b>'.$script.'</b> from the PHP CLI command line, in the background.<br><br>' ;
      echo
'<input type=hidden value=1 name=post>' ;
      echo
'<input type=submit value=" RUN IN BACKGROUND "></form></div>' ;
      exit ;
   }

#  cURL URL PROMPT FUNCTION
  
function cURL_prompt($url_path) {
     
ob_start(); // start output buffer
     
$c=curl_init($url_path);
     
curl_setopt($c, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 2); // drop connection after 2 seconds
     
curl_exec($c);
     
curl_close($c);
     
ob_end_clean(); // discard output buffer
  
}
?>
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7
jonathon dot keogh at gmail dot com
15 years ago
You can do set_time_limit(0); so that the script will run forever - however this is not recommended and your web server might catch you out with an imposed HTTP timeout (usually around 5 minutes).

You should check your web server's guides for more information about HTTP timeouts.

Jonathon
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6
php at mightycpa.com
20 years ago
You may also need to look at Apache's timeout setting (Win32 version for me), I changed max execution time value in php.ini, and still got stopped by Apache's timeout value in the httpd.conf file.
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2
robertbrogers at gmail dot com
10 years ago
Documentation states:
When called, set_time_limit() restarts the timeout counter from zero. In other words, if the timeout is the default 30 seconds, and 25 seconds into script execution a call such as set_time_limit(20) is made, the script will run for a total of 45 seconds before timing out.

If I have a long running script and i want a exact  time limit, I set this as near as possible to the first line.
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1
Daan
3 years ago
If you would like to calculatue the wall time of your script (includes all external DB/HTTP calls etc.) in Unix (in Windows this is already default behavior), you could use the following function:

<?php

$timeoutInSeconds
= 3;

// This will make sure this is always called async                    
pcntl_async_signals(1);   
                                                                                                           
// Second parameter is any callable (https://www.php.net/manual/en/language.types.callable.php)         
pcntl_signal(SIGALRM, function() {
    exit(
'Stop it!');
});
pcntl_alarm($timeoutInSeconds);                                                                                                        
                                                                                 
?>
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0
f.nakamura
8 years ago
set_tme_limit resets the execution time count.

test code1:
<?php
echo '<html><body>';
set_time_limit(1);
$i = 0;
while(++
$i < 100000001){
        if(
$i % 100000 == 0){
                echo
$i / 100000, "<br/>\n";
        }
}
echo
"done.<br/>\n";

// will not echo 'done.'.
?>

test code2:
<?php
echo '<html><body>';
set_time_limit(1);
$i = 0;
while(++
$i < 100000001){
        if(
$i % 100000 == 0){
               
set_time_limit(1);
                echo
$i / 100000, "<br/>\n";
        }
}
echo
"done.<br/>\n";

// will echo 'done.'
?>
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2
rycardo74 at gmail dot com
18 years ago
this work to fine html streaming AND time pass limit

<?php
header
('Content-type: text/plain');
echo
date("H:m:s"), "\n";
set_time_limit(30);
for (
$i = 0; $i < 1000; $i++)
{

    echo
date("H:m:s"),"\n";
    for (
$r = 0; $r < 100000; $r++){
   
$X.=  tan(M_LNPI+log(ceildate("s")*M_PI*M_LNPI+100)));
    }
   
ob_flush();  
   
flush();

}
echo
"work! $x";
?>
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0
konrads dot smelkovs at gmail dot com
17 years ago
If you are streaming large data from database, it is counted towards the max exec time.
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-4
ratty at brohoof dot com
12 years ago
One thing that I wish I had found sooner is, if you're using php-cli and really need to limit the executation time, and if you're in *nix, you can use "timeout" which is part of coreutils.
For example:

timeout 5 /usr/bin/php -q /path/to/script

and it will kill it if it takes longer than 5 seconds.
I had a few quick php scripts I wrote for use with cacti for example.
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-3
rsallo at gna dot NOSPAM dot es
20 years ago
When you are working with IIS, PHP timeout is valid only when it's lower than script timeout defined by IIS.

IIS 5 has a default timeout of 300 seconds. If you need a higher timeout, you also have to change IIS properties. Otherwise, your server will stop your PHP script before it reaches its own timeout.
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-6
jatin at jatinchimote dot com
18 years ago
If you set the number of seconds to a very large number (not many ppl do that, but just in case) then php exits with a fatal error like :

Fatal error: Maximum execution time of 1 second exceeded in /path/to/your/script/why.php

[EDIT by danbrown AT php DOT net: This is due to the limit of 32-bit signed integers.]
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-7
php at stock-consulting dot com
17 years ago
To find out the currently set time limit, use

<?php
ini_get
('max_execution_time');
?>

If set_time_limit has been previously called in the script, the result will be the value which was passed to set_time_limit (and not, as the function name "ini_get" appears to suggest, the value from the php.ini file).
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-9
alexander dot krause at ed-solutions dot de
12 years ago
A nice workaround to have a real max_execution_time (needs posix and pcntl):

<?php
$pid
=pcntl_fork();

if (
$pid) {
 
//long time process
 
$a=0;
  while (
true) {
    echo
"a=$a\n\n";
   
ob_flush();
   
flush();
   
$a++;
   
shell_exec('sleep 10&');
  }
} else {
 
//time-limit checker
 
sleep(5);
 
posix_kill(posix_getppid(),SIGKILL);
}
?>
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-18
ravenswd at gmail dot com
14 years ago
Unfortunately, a script which gets into an infinite loop can produce an alarming amount of output in only a few seconds. I was attempting to debug a script, and I added

<?php
set_time_limit
(2);
?>

to the beginning of the script. Unfortunately, even two seconds of run time produced enough output to overload the memory available to my browser.

So, I wrote a short routine which would limit the execution time, and also limit the amount of output returned. I added this to the beginning of my script and it worked perfectly:

<?php
set_time_limit
(2);

ob_start();     // buffer output

function shutdown () {
   
// print only first 2000 characters of output
   
$out = ob_get_clean();
    print
substr($out, 0, 2000);
}

register_shutdown_function('shutdown');
?>
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-20
agvozden at gmail dot com
13 years ago
If you got something like:

msg: set_time_limit() [function.set-time-limit]: Cannot set time limit in safe mode

try this:

<?php
       
if( !ini_get('safe_mode') ){
           
set_time_limit(25);
        }
?>
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-20
Silver_Knight
13 years ago
if you are running a script that needs to execute for unknown time, or forever.. you may use
set_time_limit(0);
.....
...
..
.
and at the end of the script use flush() function to tell phpto send out what it has generated.
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-19
bjfieldNO at SPAMgmail dot com
17 years ago
Timeouts after five minutes in IIS on Windows are caused by an inherited CGI Timeout value of 300 seconds.  This is not a PHP problem.  The fix is to add custom values for the files or directories that need longer to run.

In IIS 5.0 or 7.0 (beta as of this note), you can change this value on a fairly granular level using IIS Manager, under (roughly) YOURSITE -> Properties -> Home Directory -> Configuration (button) -> Options, but in IIS 6.0, this functionality is turned off (!), so you have to get into the Metabase.

Find the site number in Metabase Explorer (e.g., 12345678), then from CMD prompt:

[get to the scripts dir]
cd C:\Inetpub\AdminScripts

[this for each subdirectory from off the site root]
cscript adsutil.vbs CREATE W3SVC/12345678/root/"MY SUBDIRECTORY" IIsWebDirectory

[this for the file in question]
cscript adsutil.vbs CREATE W3SVC/12345678/root/"MY SUBDIRECTORY"/ILikeToTimeOut.php IIsWebFile

[this to set the timeout]
cscript adsutil.vbs set W3SVC/12345678/root/"MY SUBDIRECTORY"/ILikeToTimeOut.php/CGITimeout "7200"

Note:  "7200" is 2 hours in seconds, but can be whatever.

I derived the solution above from this fine article:
http://www.iis-resources.com/modules/AMS/article.php?
storyid=509&page=3
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-22
Cleverduck
18 years ago
Regarding what 'nytshadow' said, it's important to realize that max-execution-time and the set_time_limit functions measure the time that the CPU is working on the script.  If the script blocks, IE: for input, select, sleep, etc., then the time between blocking and returning is NOT measured.  This is the same when running scripts from the command line interface.  So if you've got a log parser written in PHP that tails a file, that program WILL fail eventually.  It just depends how long it takes to read in enough input to process for 30 seconds.

If you're writing a command line script that should run infinitely, setting max-execution-time to 0 (never stop) is HIGHLY recommended.
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-23
BW
14 years ago
If you use Apache you can change maximum execution time by .htaccess with this line

php_value max_execution_time 200
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-2
Anonymous
4 years ago
if you want to check how much time remains, this should work (at least on Windows, on non-Windows platforms, i'm not sure)

$seconds_remaining_until_termination = ini_get('max_execution_time') === "0" ? null : ((int)ini_get('max_execution_time'))-(microtime(true)-$_SERVER['REQUEST_TIME_FLOAT']);

gives you number of seconds until the script will be terminated due to the time limit. (tested on Windows 7 X64 SP1 with PHP 7.3.7)  - or gives you null if there is no time limit.
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-39
mingalevme at gmail dot com
11 years ago
If you're using PHP_CLI SAPI and getting error "Maximum execution time of N seconds exceeded" where N is an integer value, try to call set_time_limit(0) every M seconds or every iteration. For example:

<?php

require_once('db.php');

$stmt = $db->query($sql);

while (
$row = $stmt->fetchRow()) {
   
set_time_limit(0);
   
// your code here
}

?>
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