# GearmanClient::doBackground

(PECL gearman >= 0.5.0)

GearmanClient::doBackground — Run a task in the background

### Description

public GearmanClient::doBackground ( string `$function_name` , string `$workload` [, string `$unique` ] ) : string

Runs a task in the background, returning a job handle which can be used to get the status of the running task.

### Parameters

`function_name`

  A registered function the worker is to execute

`workload`

  Serialized data to be processed

`unique`

  A unique ID used to identify a particular task

### Return Values

The job handle for the submitted task.

### Examples

Example #1 Submit and monitor a background job

The worker in this example has an artificial delay introduced to mimic a long running job. The client script periodically checks the status of the running job.

`<?php
/* create our object */
$gmclient= new GearmanClient();
/* add the default server */
$gmclient->addServer();
/* run reverse client */
$job_handle = $gmclient->doBackground("reverse", "this is a test");
if ($gmclient->returnCode() != GEARMAN_SUCCESS)
{
echo "bad return code\n";
exit;
}
$done = false;
do
{
sleep(3);
$stat = $gmclient->jobStatus($job_handle);
if (!$stat[0]) // the job is known so it is not done
$done = true;
echo "Running: " . ($stat[1] ? "true" : "false") . ", numerator: " . $stat[2] . ", denominator: " . $stat[3] . "\n";
}
while(!$done);
echo "done!\n";
?>`

The above example will output something similar to:

    Running: true, numerator: 3, denominator: 14
    Running: true, numerator: 6, denominator: 14
    Running: true, numerator: 9, denominator: 14
    Running: true, numerator: 12, denominator: 14
    Running: false, numerator: 0, denominator: 0
    done!

### See Also

- GearmanClient::doNormal() - Run a single task and return a result
- GearmanClient::doHigh() - Run a single high priority task
- GearmanClient::doLow() - Run a single low priority task
- GearmanClient::doHighBackground() - Run a high priority task in the background
- GearmanClient::doLowBackground() - Run a low priority task in the background