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<h1 class="title">Introduction</h1>
<p class="para">
Process Control support in PHP implements the Unix style of
process creation, program execution, signal handling and process
termination. Process Control should not be enabled within a
web server environment and unexpected results may happen if any
Process Control functions are used within a web server environment.
</p>
<p class="para">
This documentation is intended to explain the general usage of
each of the Process Control functions. For detailed information
about Unix process control you are encouraged to consult your
systems documentation including fork(2), waitpid(2) and signal(2)
or a comprehensive reference such as Advanced Programming in the
UNIX Environment by W. Richard Stevens (Addison-Wesley).
</p>
<p class="para">
PCNTL now uses ticks as the signal handle callback mechanism, which is
much faster than the previous mechanism. This change follows the same
semantics as using "user ticks". You use the <span class="function"><strong>declare()</strong></span>
statement to specify the locations in your program where callbacks are
allowed to occur. This allows you to minimize the overhead of handling
asynchronous events. In the past, compiling PHP with pcntl enabled would
always incur this overhead, whether or not your script actually used
pcntl.
</p>
<p class="para">
There is one adjustment that all pcntl scripts prior to PHP 4.3.0 must
make for them to work which is to either to use
<span class="function"><strong>declare()</strong></span> on a section where you wish to allow
callbacks or to just enable it across the entire script using
the new global syntax of <span class="function"><strong>declare()</strong></span>.
</p>
<blockquote class="note"><p><strong class="note">Note</strong>: <span class="simpara">This extension is not
available on Windows platforms.</span></p></blockquote>
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