title: Writing to Apache access_log file with php
body: <p>I need to write statistical data to the live Apache access_log file (I have another process counting specific lines in the access_log file that reports periodically back to another process).</p>
  
  <p>Currently I am simply forcing an entry into the access_log file by doing the following in php:</p>
  
  <pre><code>file("http://127.0.0.1/logme.php?stuff_that_I_can_watch_here");
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>logme.php does nothing and returns empty with a 200 success.</p>
  
  <p>The problem with the above technique is that for every request to the Apache server, another is spawned to write to the log - hence doubling required apache servers.</p>
  
  <p>When the servers pile up, the simple and usually fast local call to the Apache server takes over 5 seconds.</p>
  
  <p>Can I write to the access_log file directly without causing problems, or maybe even is there a way to write to the apache_log file using php similar to syslog() or error_log()?</p>