Implementing High‑Precision Timers in PHP with Workerman and Swoole

Traditional OS crontab tasks lack second‑ or millisecond‑level granularity and are not well suited for high‑precision scheduling in PHP applications.

The article introduces PHP's powerful millisecond timer capabilities and presents two timer extensions (Workerman and Swoole) that can be installed to achieve fine‑grained scheduling.

Workerman Timer Example

onWorkerStart = function () {
    // Execute at the 1st second of every minute
    new Crontab('1 * * * * *', function () {
        echo date('Y-m-d H:i:s') . "\n";
    });
    // Execute daily at 07:50 (seconds omitted)
    new Crontab('50 7 * * *', function () {
        echo date('Y-m-d H:i:s') . "\n";
    });
    // Execute every 2.5 seconds
    $time_interval = 2.5;
    Timer::add($time_interval, function () {
        echo "task run\n";
    });
};
Worker::runAll();

// Destroy a timer
$crontab = new Crontab('1 * * * * *', function () {
    echo date('Y-m-d H:i:s') . "\n";
});
$crontab->destroy();
?>

Swoole Timer Example

// Execute a callback every 30 seconds
swoole_timer_tick(30000, function ($timer) use ($task_id) {
    $memPercent = 1000;
    echo date('Y-m-d H:i:s') . '当前值：' . $memPercent . "\n";
});

// Execute once after 2 minutes
swoole_timer_after(120000, function () use ($str) {
    echo "send report, $str\n";
});

// Clear a timer
swoole_timer_clear(int $timer_id);

The article also provides a complete Swoole server example that demonstrates how to start a server, handle connections, receive data, and integrate timer‑based tasks within the onTask callback.

4,
        'daemonize' => true,
        'log_file' => '/data/log/swoole-task.log',
        'log_level' => 0,
        'dispatch_mode' => 1,
        'task_worker_num' => 4,
        'task_ipc_mode' => 3,
    ];

    public function __construct($options = []) {
        date_default_timezone_set('PRC');
        $this->serv = new swoole_server($this->host, $this->port);
        if (!empty($options)) {
            $this->options = array_merge($this->options, $options);
        }
        $this->serv->set($this->options);
        $this->serv->on('Start', [$this, 'onStart']);
        $this->serv->on('Connect', [$this, 'onConnect']);
        $this->serv->on('Receive', [$this, 'onReceive']);
        $this->serv->on('Task', [$this, 'onTask']);
        $this->serv->on('Finish', [$this, 'onFinish']);
        $this->serv->on('Close', [$this, 'onClose']);
    }

    public function start() {
        $this->serv->start();
    }

    public function onStart($serv) {
        cli_set_process_title($this->taskName);
        $pid = "{$serv->master_pid}\n{$serv->manager_pid}";
        file_put_contents($this->pidPath, $pid);
    }

    public function onConnect($serv, $fd, $from_id) {
        $serv->send($fd, "Hello {$fd}!");
    }

    public function onReceive(swoole_server $serv, $fd, $from_id, $data) {
        echo "Get Message From Client {$fd}:{$data}\n";
        $res['result'] = 'success';
        $serv->send($fd, json_encode($res));
        $serv->task($data);
    }

    public function onTask(swoole_server $serv, $task_id, $from_id, $data) {
        swoole_timer_tick(30000, function ($timer) use ($task_id) {
            echo date('Y-m-d H:i:s') . "\n";
        });
    }

    public function onFinish(swoole_server $serv, $task_id, $data) {}

    public function onClose($serv, $fd, $from_id) {
        echo "Client {$fd} close connection\n";
    }

    public function stop() {
        $this->serv->stop();
    }
}
?>

By leveraging these timer mechanisms, developers can implement precise, high‑performance scheduled tasks in PHP without relying on the limited granularity of traditional cron jobs.