(PHP 3 >= 3.0.7, PHP 4, PHP 5)
pfsockopen -- 
     Open persistent Internet or Unix domain socket connection
    
Description
resource 
pfsockopen ( string hostname [, int port [, int &errno [, string &errstr [, float 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().