exec help required please

My script keeps timing out so I am hoping to make it run in the background.

I submit a form to a page which says this:

$url_to_grab = $_POST['url'];
   $page_count = $_POST['pagecount'];
   $shop_id = $_POST['shopid'];

   exec("php bg_script.php?url=$url_to_grab&page_count=$page_count&shop_id=$shop_id &");

PHP:

Then in the backgound script it says this:

$url_to_grab = $_GET['url'];
   $page_count = $_GET['pagecount'];
   $shop_id = $_GET['shopid'];

PHP:

and starts performing some stuff.

But it doesn't.

I guess I either have the exec command wrong (couldn't find ANYwhere how to pass variables) or the $_GET won't work.

Any help would be appreciated, thank you. My gut feeling is that I'm miles off... Perhaps exec should have been system()

BTW running PHP 4.3.1 on FreeBSD 4.8-STABLE

 

I've changed it to:

$url_to_grab = $_POST['url'];
   $page_count = $_POST['pagecount'];
   $shop_id = $_POST['shopid'];

   exec("php bg_script.php $url_to_grab $page_count $shop_id &");

PHP:

Then in the backgound script it says this:

$url_to_grab = $argv[0];
   $page_count = $argv[1];
   $shop_id = $argv[2];

PHP:

It's pretty tough without any errors coming back at you to guess what's going on.

Is it possible at all to run a php script like this if I don't know the absolute path to php.exe?

 

Is there any way I can tell from the phpinfo command?

I tried the most basic filewrite from the backgorund script to see if it's alive at all but it's not doing anything.

 

I'm going to wuss out and cut the process up in bits to avoid timing out.

This exec thing is too much of a headache and I need a solution fast.

Thanks for your assistance!