For most programs written in PHP, its sole purpose is to execute a simple process consisting of multiple tasks, where the tasks must be executed in sequence such as data processing. We always have to tolerate the stop and wait aspect of synchronous programming. The synchronous style of code execution is referred to as blocking, this implies that tasks will be executed one by one. So what if we want to run tasks without them blocking each other, that means we need to have a non-blocking process? This approach would require applying asynchronous programming approaches in PHP, here tasks will be executed without depending on of each other.
A common approach to achieve a non-blocking execution in PHP is to implement queue processing. Tasks are persisted to a transport system e.g MySQL, Redis, Amazon SQS e.t.c, which is retrieved by a background worker and executed accordingly, thereby not blocking the main process in which it was created. A laravel application provides a queue mechanism that allows tasks in this case called jobs to be deferred for to a later time for processing.
Another approach would be to run all defined tasks in parallel. What we get out of this approach is that a particular task is done it can return control back to the main process immediately with a promise to execute code and notify us about the result later(e.g. callback). One might see little use case for the parallel processing approach; example use case could be performing image processing and making a get request to some external service.
Let’s see the difference between synchronous and asynchronous (parallel) process in PHP using a very simple use case.
Synchronous code
foreach (range(1, 5) as $i) {
$output = $i * 2;
echo $output . "\n";
}
Asynchronous code
use Spatie\Async\Pool;
$pool = Pool::create();
foreach (range(1, 5) as $i) {
$pool[] = async(function () use ($i) {
$output = $i * 2;
return $output;
})->then(function (int $output) {
echo $output . "\n";
});
}
await($pool);
When we execute the first code we will get the output values in this order:
2
4
6
8
10
Retrying the execution, we will get the output in this same sequence above … hence each multiplication operation waits to execute before the next one. Next, running the second code block, let’s see what we get.
6
10
2
8
4
Retrying the execution for the second time:
2
6
4
10
8
One process happens to produce two different results. This exactly is what we get for utilising the asynchronous approach … our little tasks can be executed in a fashion they don’t block each other. Each multiplication task executes independently, some faster than others hence the disorderliness in the output. Also, notice our async function as a then method attached to it, this method is responsible for taking back control and it accepts a callback function as its parameter which can now perform extra operations with the received output.
The folks at Spatie made this nice spatie/async package, which helps in performing tasks in parallel. You can install the package via composer:
composer require spatie/async
The package provides a neat way to interact with the tasks created, that are to be executed in parallel. The Event Listeners on the tasks are described below:
- Performing another operation when the task is done as the callback is achievable with its
thenmethod. - Error handling is easier to control when a particular task throws an exception using the
catchmethod. - Take for instance a task does not complete its operation, a
timeoutmethod allows one to handle such a scenario.
The event listeners are hooked to a task as shown below:
$pool
->add(function () {
// Task to be performed in a Parallel process
})
->then(function ($output) {
// On success, `$output` is returned by the process or callable you passed to the queue.
})
->catch(function ($exception) {
// When an exception is thrown from within a process, it's caught and passed here.
})
->timeout(function () {
// Ohh No! A process took too long to finish. Let's do something
})
;
To learn more about the spatie/async package read this article from one of its contributors here and you can also refer to the GitHub repo.
Top comments (16)
This is great. I hope PHP7 finally brings native async, they've made so many advances but async is something so many people really wants from it
for async and concurrent code I really like Amp project. It's really good and easy to integrate: amphp.org/
Awesome Post 😎
Thank you very much for sharing this✨. Definable learnt a lot as regards async operations.
Async is one of the needy feature inbuilt to PHP. As per Nikita this feature wont come anytime soon. Which is sad. However if you want performance in PHP Asynchronus Programming, defenitly checkout SwoolPHP which has been less noticed over years since its inception. Its features are inspired from NodeJS and Golang. Performance is far better than NodeJS maybe kind of closer to Go.
Instead of library like ReactPHP or AmPHP it is written in C as PHP extension. Yet its feature rich like these librarires.
Checkout their links
swoole.co.uk/
github.com/swoole/swoole-src
swoolebook.com/
How about something actually more native like, and simpler to use, all pure PHP base.
symplely.github.io/coroutine/
Hmm, i prefer amp/parallel because it works for both web and console
I tried the example, but with this result:
Argument 1 passed to await() must be an instance of Spatie\Async\Pool, instance of Spatie\Async\Process\SynchronousProcess given.I needed to see this post! I've been struggling with this and finally just switched to using Golang. This definitely seems to be something I could have used! Great post! ⚡
I think asynchronous doesn't fitt with Php.may be you can use another language to implement asynchronous as Node.js or Golang. If you want to see deep your job in async PHP is not good for you
I can't use your second code block which use spatie\async produce different result, it's still 2,4,6,8,10
Sorry, it turns out to be my homestead enviroment problem
This is great!!
Good one
Queues are more useful in modern world instead the 'asynchronous' hype. Think about developers efficiency than machines efficiency. Laravel has great Queues support!
Nice post.
Could you add syntax highlighting?