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On the last page, I displayed the PHP script for the sockets. Here I will briefly go over what you see. As I said earlier, all the comments needed to understand it are located in the zip file I have provided for download. So lets check this stuff out a bit!

#!/usr/bin/php -q

This line states that this script is a PHP shell script and not a PHP web script. A -q denotes that all HTTP headers will be suppressed.

---

error_reporting(E_ALL);

 

set_time_limit(0);

 

ob_implicit_flush();

 

$address = '192.168.0.16';

$port = 9999;

 

function send_Message($allclient, $socket, $buf) {

foreach($allclient as $client) {

socket_write($client, "$socket wrote: $buf");

}

}

 

 

 

//---- Start Socket creation for PHP 5 Socket Server -------------------------------------

 

if (($master = socket_create(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, SOL_TCP)) < 0) {

echo "socket_create() failed, reason: " . socket_strerror($master) . "\n";

}

 

socket_set_option($master, SOL_SOCKET,SO_REUSEADDR, 1);

 

if (($ret = socket_bind($master, $address, $port)) < 0) {

echo "socket_bind() failed, reason: " . socket_strerror($ret) . "\n";

}

 

if (($ret = socket_listen($master, 5)) < 0) {

echo "socket_listen() failed, reason: " . socket_strerror($ret) . "\n";

}

 

$read_sockets = array($master);

Just setting up and declaring any variables that we will use throughout the script. A master socket has been created so that others can attempt to connect. As you can see, the socket is bound to your IP and desired Port. In the last step, a listen method is applied to the socket so that anything attempting to connect is heard and then dealt with.

Note - Flash Port Numbers

Anytime you need to have Flash connect to any port, you must have the port equal to or higher than 1024. This is a default precaution Flash takes to ensure connections are not crossing with other ports such as 21, 24, or 80.

 

---

while (true) {

$changed_sockets = $read_sockets;

 

$num_changed_sockets = socket_select($changed_sockets, $write = NULL, $except = NULL, NULL);

 

foreach($changed_sockets as $socket) {

 

if ($socket == $master) {

 

if (($client = socket_accept($master)) < 0) {

echo "socket_accept() failed: reason: " . socket_strerror($msgsock) . "\n";

continue;

} else {

array_push($read_sockets, $client);

}

} else {

 

$bytes = socket_recv($socket, $buffer, 2048, 0);

 

if ($bytes == 0) {

$index = array_search($socket, $read_sockets);

unset($read_sockets[$index]);

socket_close($socket);

}else{

$allclients = $read_sockets;

array_shift($allclients);

 

send_Message($allclients, $socket, $buffer);

}

}

 

}

}

This piece makes a continuous loop to obtain any connections made to the master socket and process them accordingly. If a socket sends data to the server it will send that data package out to everyone else connected. If a socket sends a disconnect signal, the socket is then closed out completely and removed from the master array of sockets.

Just remember, all the comments are included with this PHP file in the ZIP at the end of this tutorial!!

Now it's time to write a Batch file to run our PHP Shell script to make our chat room work. The next section will show you the Batch file we will write and show you what is happening.