server.xbox_server

<h2> Xbox Server</h2>

Xbox stands for "cross-box" communication, and it's a very simple messaging
system. There are only 2 functions to learn,

  $ret = null;
  $code = xbox_send_message($msg, $ret, $timeout_ms, $host);
  $code = xbox_post_message($msg, $host);

1. xbox_send_message()

xbox_send_message() is a blocking call. It will send the message, which is just
a string, to specified host. It waits for $timeout_ms long and returns 0 if
times out. On the specified host's side, there has to be an xbox server that's
set up through compiled program's options, and one also has to implement a PHP
function like this,

  function xbox_process_message($msg) {
    ...
    return $ret;
  }

The final result gets returned to the caller if timeout hasn't been reached and
the $code would be 200. The function name is configurable, but it is by design
to have just one function to serve as main entry point of all messages. A
message string can encode message types by itself.

2. xbox_post_message()

xbox_post_message() is a non-blocking call. It will not wait for server to
process the message and it will return 200 immediately, unless server cannot
be contacted at all.

3. local host

When $host is local, xbox task functions give more control over task statuses.
In that case, xbox processing becomes a multi-threading facility that's better
described in "threading" documentation.