Wicked Cool PHP

#12: Extending the Run Time of a Script

At one point, the company I work for changed its online shopping carts, forcing me to write a script to convert 250MB of stored product data from the old cart's format into the new cart's format. The script worked perfectly, but I was evaluating and transforming so much data that PHP kept timing out my program after 30 seconds, long before it had a chance to finish.

That's when I discovered a handy-dandy little extension that allowed me to get the job done. The following line, when added to the beginning of a script, allows the script to take up to 240 seconds to finish.

ini_set(max_execution_time, "240");

The max_execution_time configuration parameter controls the longest allowable time a script is allowed ...