pfsockopen
    (PHP 3>= 3.0.7, PHP 4 )
pfsockopen -- 
     Open persistent Internet or Unix domain socket connection
    
Description
int 
pfsockopen ( string hostname, int port [, int errno [, string errstr [, int timeout]]])
     This function behaves exactly as fsockopen()
     with the difference that the connection is not closed after the
     script finishes.  It is the persistent version of
     fsockopen().