There is another way. (Probably easier to). Apache and the browser won't time out as long as data is being sent. So send some data...

#!/usr/bin/perl

$| = 1;

# thousands of ways to do this
print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";

### set up an alarm
my $timeout = 4*60; # apache normally times out after 5 min
print "<!--\n";  # hide output
$SIG{ALRM} = sub{ print ".\n"; alarm($timeout); };
# the timeout will send something to the browser every
# now and then to keep it from timing out

alarm($timeout);
&do_something_heinous();
alarm(0);
print "-->\n";  # don't need to hide output anymore

print "All done\n";
exit;

sub do_something_heinous {
  sleep(6 * 60);
}

[download]


My company actually has a module that we can use to wrap around this. It works great. (Actually, I typed this code in from memory -- our servers are down from a storm -- hope it compiles, but the idea should be intact).

my @a=qw(random brilliant braindead); print $a[rand(@a)];

In reply to Re: Browser Timeout by Rhandom
in thread Browser Timeout by Jonas

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.