Exploring the PHP Function Pclose
A function provides code that a PHP script can call to perform a specific task. PHP has over 700 built-in functions that ship with the language, and developers can create their own. In this article, we’ll explore the php function pclose and provide examples of how to use it.
Functions are a key element in any procedural programming paradigm, and they’re essential to a streamlined application. They allow for the creation of modular code that can be called from anywhere in a script, negating the need to re-write logic that has already been developed elsewhere in an application.
In this article, we’ll take a look at the pclose function, which is used to close an opened pipe in PHP. We’ll also provide examples of how to use this php function in your applications, and share some tips on how to optimize its usage.
The pclose() function takes one mandatory parameter: the file pointer that was initiated by the popen() function. The return value is the termination status of the process that ran, or -1 if an error occurred. If the stream pointed to by stream was not created by popen(), pclose() does not close it and will return an exit code of 1. This behavior is required for conforming systems. Historical implementations may block or ignore the signals SIGINT, SIGQUIT, and SIGHUP while waiting for the child process to terminate. This behaviour is not conforming and should be avoided by using the pcntl_wexitstatus() function instead.