[DOC-CVS] [doc-en] master: Document --enable-zend-max-execution-timers configure option (#5269)

Author: Louis-Arnaud (lacatoire)
Committer: GitHub (web-flow)
Pusher: lacatoire
Date: 2026-08-21T11:42:40+02:00

Commit: https://github.com/php/doc-en/commit/667093532547bcfe6224765f038c151c61f30f48
Raw diff: https://github.com/php/doc-en/commit/667093532547bcfe6224765f038c151c61f30f48.diff

Document --enable-zend-max-execution-timers configure option (#5269)

Fixes #3767

Changed paths:
  M  appendices/configure/misc.xml
  M  reference/info/ini.xml


Diff:

diff --git a/appendices/configure/misc.xml b/appendices/configure/misc.xml
index c95b91eab5a8..6e3d9b8be69d 100644
--- a/appendices/configure/misc.xml
+++ b/appendices/configure/misc.xml
@@ -46,6 +46,27 @@
     </listitem>
    </varlistentry>
 
+   <varlistentry xml:id="configure.enable-zend-max-execution-timers">
+    <term>
+     <option role="configure">--enable-zend-max-execution-timers</option>
+    </term>
+    <listitem>
+     <simpara>
+      Use POSIX per-thread timers for
+      <link linkend="ini.max-execution-time">max_execution_time</link>
+      tracking instead of the process-wide
+      <literal>setitimer()</literal>. These timers measure elapsed time
+      (<literal>CLOCK_BOOTTIME</literal>, or
+      <literal>CLOCK_MONOTONIC</literal> on FreeBSD), whereas the default
+      <literal>setitimer(ITIMER_PROF)</literal> measures CPU time, so time
+      spent sleeping or waiting on I/O counts towards the limit.
+      Requires <literal>timer_create()</literal> support: available on
+      Linux, and on FreeBSD as of PHP 8.4.0.
+      Available since PHP 8.1.0. Enabled by default for ZTS builds since
+      PHP 8.3.0.
+     </simpara>
+    </listitem>
+   </varlistentry>
    <varlistentry xml:id="configure.enable-sigchild">
     <term>
      <option role="configure">--enable-sigchild</option>
diff --git a/reference/info/ini.xml b/reference/info/ini.xml
index fcb3b6ec99a7..6863047f0c8e 100644
--- a/reference/info/ini.xml
+++ b/reference/info/ini.xml
@@ -251,6 +251,15 @@
       <function>set_time_limit</function> function for more
       details.
      </para>
+     <simpara>
+      When PHP is compiled with
+      <link linkend="configure.enable-zend-max-execution-timers">--enable-zend-max-execution-timers</link>
+      (the default for ZTS builds since PHP 8.3.0), the limit is tracked
+      with POSIX per-thread timers that measure elapsed time, so time
+      spent sleeping or waiting on I/O counts towards it. The default
+      <literal>setitimer(ITIMER_PROF)</literal> based tracking measures
+      CPU time instead.
+     </simpara>
      <para>
       Your web server can have other timeout configurations that may 
       also interrupt PHP execution. Apache has a