How to increase or decrease the maximum execution time of a php script

By default PHP script execution time is set for 30 seconds at php.ini file. This is the time limit set for all the files to finish its execution. If the file takes more than this set time then the execution of the script will be stopped and error message will be displayed like this.

Fatal error: Maximum execution time of 30 seconds exceeded in F:php_filesttest.php on line 14

This maximum execution time limit is set inside the php.ini file like this.

max_execution_time = 30 ; Maximum execution time of each script, in seconds

This value can be increased or decreased as per our requirement at php.ini file but note that in a server environment where many sites are hosted, any change in php.ini will affect all the sites hosted by the server. So this change is not possible unless you own the server and you are the only user. In a shared hosting our host may not like to change any settings of php.ini for our requirement. So there is a option to set the file execution time for the particular file at the individual file end. This adjustment of time limit has no effect if php is running in safe mode. Let us try to learn how this works.