Hi,

I'd like to request the function mysql_replica_connect:

resource mysql_replica_connect(array primary_props, array secondary_props, int hard_timeout)

array primary- / secondary_props should be:
array(
   'hostname'  => 'a hostname or ip',
   'port'      => 'a port or absolute path to socket',
   'username'  => 'a username',
   'password'  => 'a password',
);

The int hard_timeout should behave in the exact manner as fsockopen does: ie - drop the connection attempt if it's passed.

This is different than what mysql_connect() does now, because it will timeout until PHP_INI("max_execution_time") has passed, in case the __host__ is unreachable.

Another way would probably be, to provide a hard timeout on mysql_connect.