Yes of course when I am done contingencies for mysql failure and other things will be set up. I said from the start I am not sure what the performance loss is from doing it the way I am but I haven't noticed any yet and I've been using it at YMH for more then a week now. I've never tried piping things like you stated with "tail -f | xyz". it would be a good choice and maybe a better method for some people. I'll actually be looking at how to use piped data like that in php to see how it works. The other issue I was wondering about was log rotation that was another reason why I chose to do it the way I am. Trying to gather stats on cut up log files seemed very messy to me and ruled out an easy way to do some more advanced ladder awards like most points per game and stuff because a game may be split up between multiple logs.
PHP doing 1 task is very stable and I don't see any major pitfalls in stability in fact using php this way would make it possible to restart the server easier and remotely. You could kill the proc to kill the server then restart it again all from a web admin. I know there are many other ways you could keep track of a running server and kill/start one. Also if the server dies because of a bug and someone manages to kill it then php can restart it automatically and because the console output is processed real time there would be no need to find the right place to restart on the log parsing. As for mysql dieing or running out of space alternative "temporary" methods of storing incoming logs could be implemented until the mysql server recovers. Like I said I dont know how feasible it will become the more complicated the script gets server performance wise. But I don't see any other problems with doing it this way other then slowing the server down(if it even does). I have a few people I want to test it as I go that use VPS's to see how it effects lower end configurations which may be effected more so then a higher end dedicated server.
So back on topic can we possibly get a module api pleeeeeeeese devs? :P I think this overrall would be the best solution even though I can't write c/c++ :P It would allow for the server owner to have control over how stats are gathered and generated instead of relying on any outputted stats the devs may decide the server should supply.
PHP doing 1 task is very stable and I don't see any major pitfalls in stability in fact using php this way would make it possible to restart the server easier and remotely. You could kill the proc to kill the server then restart it again all from a web admin. I know there are many other ways you could keep track of a running server and kill/start one. Also if the server dies because of a bug and someone manages to kill it then php can restart it automatically and because the console output is processed real time there would be no need to find the right place to restart on the log parsing. As for mysql dieing or running out of space alternative "temporary" methods of storing incoming logs could be implemented until the mysql server recovers. Like I said I dont know how feasible it will become the more complicated the script gets server performance wise. But I don't see any other problems with doing it this way other then slowing the server down(if it even does). I have a few people I want to test it as I go that use VPS's to see how it effects lower end configurations which may be effected more so then a higher end dedicated server.
So back on topic can we possibly get a module api pleeeeeeeese devs? :P I think this overrall would be the best solution even though I can't write c/c++ :P It would allow for the server owner to have control over how stats are gathered and generated instead of relying on any outputted stats the devs may decide the server should supply.