persistent php connection?

Question

Is it possible to have a php script pause at a certain point wait for an ajax response, then continue executing?

If not, what is the most appropriate way to store the current state of a script (all defined variables ect) untill it in invoked again?

Answer 1

Making it wait for an ajax response which could never come sounds like a very bad plan (apart from being impossible due to the nature of http as a stateless protocol).

What's wrong with using session to persist user data (you can store objects in the session)? It won't serialize the whole state automagically though.

Answer 2

Not how php works, or ajax really either. Each request is independent. You can use a session.

Answer 3

I think you are looking for Cometlink text - which is a form of reverse Ajax which holds the connection open indefinitely - although I don't think you'd have a PHP script just wait for it...

Answer 4

If you want to get in your php script response that you would normally access via ajax then just use curl functions. Curl will wait for the response to arrive.