Drush and batch

Question

i got an array of items. On each item, a process is executed wich manipulates data, write things to the database,...

When i execute my drush script (ex: drush mycommand) i start a batch process:

$batch = dms_notification_mail_sendout_batch($nid);
batch_set($batch);
$batch =& batch_get();
$batch['progressive'] = FALSE;
drush_backend_batch_process();

Now i was wondering why i would use a batch process here. Does it have any advantages? Because you with drush you don't have to consider PHP timeouts.

In short: If you don't have to consider with PHP timeouts, is batch process still usefull?

Thx!

Answer 1

with drush you don't have to consider PHP timeouts.

That's a false assumption. True, timeouts for PHP CLI are usually significantly larger, but they can be set and you can't assume they will not be.

If you own all machines it is supposed to ever run on, that assumption may work at the moment you write your script, but one change in php.ini may cause your scripts to suddenly fail, and that would be a nasty surprise, especially a year or two after you wrote your code, when you will no longer remember where you gave up on using batch processing.