# shmop_open

(PHP 4 >= 4.0.4, PHP 5)

shmop_open — Create or open shared memory block

### Description

int shmop_open ( int `$key` , string `$flags` , int `$mode` , int `$size` )

shmop_open() can create or open a shared memory block.

### Parameters

`key`

  System's id for the shared memory block. Can be passed as a decimal or hex.

`flags`

  The flags that you can use:

  - "a" for access (sets SHM_RDONLY for shmat) use this flag when you need to open an existing shared memory segment for read only
  - "c" for create (sets IPC_CREATE) use this flag when you need to create a new shared memory segment or if a segment with the same key exists, try to open it for read and write
  - "w" for read & write access use this flag when you need to read and write to a shared memory segment, use this flag in most cases.
  - "n" create a new memory segment (sets IPC_CREATE|IPC_EXCL) use this flag when you want to create a new shared memory segment but if one already exists with the same flag, fail. This is useful for security purposes, using this you can prevent race condition exploits.
`mode`

  The permissions that you wish to assign to your memory segment, those are the same as permission for a file. Permissions need to be passed in octal form, like for example 0644

`size`

  The size of the shared memory block you wish to create in bytes

> Note: Note: the 3rd and 4th should be entered as 0 if you are opening an existing memory segment.

### Return Values

On success shmop_open() will return an id that you can use to access the shared memory segment you've created. `FALSE` is returned on failure.

### Examples

Example#1 Create a new shared memory block

`<?php
$shm_key = ftok(__FILE__, 't');
$shm_id = shmop_open($shm_key, "c", 0644, 100);
?>`

This example opened a shared memory block with a system id returned by ftok().

### See Also

- shmop_close()
- shmop_delete()