title: Application threading in Windows using PHP
body: <p>I'm making a PHP application that spawns child processes with parameters detailing what work they are supposed to do. More specifically, the child processes will process rows from a large MySQL database, and the parent application will count the rows and spawn ~50 processes with a span of rows to process.</p>
  
  <p>I need a way for the parent process to know if the child processes are done. I've made this application in Linux before, using a MySQL table for the child processes to check in to. I want to do the process management independent of MySQL this time (And now I'm in Windows).</p>
  
  <p>Is there a way for a PHP parent process to acquire a "handle" to a child process at it's creation and watching it for activity?</p>
  
  <p>I hope I'm clear on the gist of what I'm trying to do. Any answers and advice would be appreciated.</p>
  
  <p><em>Except for advice to use another programming language - there are lots of PHP libraries I'm using for the processing as well as custom classes and functions</em> </p>