The php Function Stream_Set_Timeout
When a script runs too long it can cause server resource consumption which in turn can lead to slow page load times or unresponsive web applications. These issues can result in user frustration and abandonment of the website or application. Additionally, long running scripts can consume significant amounts of CPU time causing slow execution of other tasks on the server.
Using the php function stream_set_timeout you can set a maximum amount of time that a script can spend in its execution. This limit can be increased or decreased by calling the function with a different value. However, it is important to note that if you set the time limit once it will be reset at the beginning of each new script run. This means if you use this function multiple times within your script it is better to set the timeout value at the end of the script rather than at the beginning.
The stream_set_timeout function takes a single parameter which sets the timeout for a given stream. The timeout is expressed in the form of seconds and microseconds. When the timeout is reached a 'timed out' key is added to the array returned by stream_get_meta_data() although no error/warning is generated.
This function works on both file based and socket streams. It also works with a variety of wrappers which can be registered either within a script using the stream_wrapper_register() function or by an extension. This is a feature which was added in version 4.3 of PHP and as such will only work for streams that support non-blocking mode (which is all file based and socket based streams). The function will not work on streams created using fsockopen() as these are always blocking.