How to Use Workerman Timer for Scheduled PHP Tasks

Timer Overview

In Workerman, the Timer component allows you to execute a function or class method at regular intervals. The timer runs inside the current worker process; Workerman does not spawn additional processes or threads for timers.

1. Using an Anonymous Function as the Timer Callback

<?php
use Workerman\Worker;
use Workerman\Timer;
require_once __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';

$task = new Worker();
// Number of processes that will run the timer (ensure your logic is safe for concurrency)
$task->count = 1;
$task->onWorkerStart = function (Worker $task) {
    // Execute every 2.5 seconds
    $interval = 2.5;
    Timer::add($interval, function () {
        echo "task run
";
    });
};
// Start the workers
Worker::runAll();

2. Setting a Timer Only on a Specific Worker Process

If a worker instance has multiple processes, you can restrict the timer to a particular process (e.g., the process with ID 0).

<?php
use Workerman\Worker;
use Workerman\Timer;
require_once __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';

$worker = new Worker();
$worker->count = 4; // Four worker processes
$worker->onWorkerStart = function (Worker $worker) {
    // Only set the timer on the process whose ID is 0
    if ($worker->id === 0) {
        Timer::add(1, function () {
            echo "4 workers, timer only on process 0
";
        });
    }
};
Worker::runAll();

These examples demonstrate how to schedule recurring tasks with Workerman and how to control which worker processes execute the timer, helping you avoid unintended concurrency issues.