[edit] Last updated: Mon, 01 Nov 2010

LXXXI. Output Control Functions

Introducere

The Output Control functions allow you to control when output is sent from the script. This can be useful in several different situations, especially if you need to send headers to the browser after your script has began outputting data. The Output Control functions do not affect headers sent using header() or setcookie(), only functions such as echo() and data between blocks of PHP code.

Necesit��i

Aceste func�ii sunt disponibile ca p�r�i ale modulului standard care este �ntotdeauna disponibil.

Instalare

Nu este necesar� o instalare a acestor func�ii, ele fac parte din PHP.

Configurare la rulare

The behaviour of these functions is affected by settings in php.ini.

Tabel 1. Output Control configuration options

Name	Default	Changeable
output_buffering	"0"	PHP_INI_PERDIR\|PHP_INI_SYSTEM
output_handler	NULL	PHP_INI_PERDIR\|PHP_INI_SYSTEM
implicit_flush	"0"	PHP_INI_PERDIR\|PHP_INI_SYSTEM

For further details and definition of the PHP_INI_* constants see ini_set().

Here's a short explanation of the configuration directives.

output_buffering boolean/integer

You can enable output buffering for all files by setting this directive to 'On'. If you wish to limit the size of the buffer to a certain size - you can use a maximum number of bytes instead of 'On', as a value for this directive (e.g., output_buffering=4096).

output_handler string

You can redirect all of the output of your scripts to a function. For example, if you set output_handler to mb_output_handler(), character encoding will be transparently converted to the specified encoding. Setting any output handler automatically turns on output buffering.

Notã: You cannot use both mb_output_handler() with ob_inconv_handler() and you cannot use both ob_gzhandler() and zlib.output_compression.

implicit_flush boolean

FALSE by default. Changing this to TRUE tells PHP to tell the output layer to flush itself automatically after every output block. This is equivalent to calling the PHP function flush() after each and every call to print() or echo() and each and every HTML block.

When using PHP within an web environment, turning this option on has serious performance implications and is generally recommended for debugging purposes only. This value defaults to TRUE when operating under the CLI SAPI.

Tipuri de resurse

Aceast� extensie nu define�te tipuri de resurse.

Constante predefinite

Aceast� extensie nu define�te constante.

Exemple

Exemplu 1. Output Control example


<?php



ob_start();

echo "Hello\n";



setcookie("cookiename", "cookiedata");



ob_end_flush();



?>

In the above example, the output from echo() would be stored in the output buffer until ob_end_flush() was called. In the mean time, the call to setcookie() successfully stored a cookie without causing an error. (You can not normally send headers to the browser after data has already been sent.)

Notã: When upgrading from PHP 4.1 (and 4.2) to 4.3 that due to a bug in earlier versions you must ensure that implict_flush is OFF in your php.ini, otherwise any output with ob_start() will not be hidden from output.

Vezi, de asemenea,

See also header() and setcookie().

Cuprins
flush -- Flush the output buffer
ob_clean -- Clean (erase) the output buffer
ob_end_clean -- Clean (erase) the output buffer and turn off output buffering
ob_end_flush -- Flush (send) the output buffer and turn off output buffering
ob_flush -- Flush (send) the output buffer
ob_get_clean -- Get current buffer contents and delete current output buffer
ob_get_contents -- Return the contents of the output buffer
ob_get_flush -- Flush the output buffer, return it as a string and turn off output buffering
ob_get_length -- Return the length of the output buffer
ob_get_level -- Return the nesting level of the output buffering mechanism
ob_get_status -- Get status of output buffers
ob_gzhandler -- ob_start callback function to gzip output buffer
ob_implicit_flush -- Turn implicit flush on/off
ob_list_handlers -- List all output handlers in use
ob_start -- Turn on output buffering
output_add_rewrite_var -- Add URL rewriter values
output_reset_rewrite_vars -- Reset URL rewriter values

flush

ovrimos_rollback

[edit] Last updated: Mon, 01 Nov 2010

add a note User Contributed Notes Output Control Functions

Anonymous 20-Apr-2009 12:24


You possibly also want to end your benchmark after the output is flushed.



<?php

your_benchmark_start_function();



ob_start ();

for ($i = 0; $i < 5000; $i++)

    echo str_repeat ("your string blablabla bla bla", (rand() % 4) + 1)."<br>\n";



                              <----------

echo your_benchmark_end_function();      |

ob_end_flush (); ------------------------

?>

della at sun dot com 25-Nov-2008 01:08


Sometimes users are blaming about slow pages ... not being aware that mostly this is due to network issues.


So I've decided to add some statistics at the end of my pages:





At beginning I start the counters:





<?php


  function microtime_float() { 


    if (version_compare(PHP_VERSION, '5.0.0', '>'))  return microtime(true);


    list($u,$s)=explode(' ',microtime()); return ((float)$u+(float)$s);  


  }


  $initime=microtime_float();


  ob_start();


  ob_implicit_flush();


?>





And at the end I show the statistics:





<?php


  echo "PHP Time: ".round((microtime_float()-$initime)*1000)." msecs. ";


  echo "Size: ".round_byte(strlen(ob_get_contents()));


  ob_end_flush();


?>





(round_byte is my function to print byte sizes)

jgeewax a t gmail 29-Jun-2007 07:02


It seems that while using output buffering, an included file which calls die() before the output buffer is closed is flushed rather than cleaned. That is, ob_end_flush() is called by default.



<?php

// a.php (this file should never display anything)

ob_start();

include('b.php');

ob_end_clean();

?>



<?php

// b.php

print "b";

die();

?>



This ends up printing "b" rather than nothing as ob_end_flush() is called instead of ob_end_clean(). That is, die() flushes the buffer rather than cleans it. This took me a while to determine what was causing the flush, so I thought I'd share.

basicartsstudios at hotmail dot com 28-Jan-2007 12:45


Please note that most browsers don't display a table unless they passed its end-tag "</table>".



Thats why using this feature in HTML-tables might not result in what you expected...



best regards

BasicArtsStudios

basicartsstudios at hotmail dot com 21-Jan-2007 10:39


Sometimes you might not want to include a php-file under the specifications defined in the functions include() or require(), but you might want to have in return the string that the script in the file "echoes".



Include() and require() both directly put out the evaluated code.



For avoiding this, try output-buffering:

<?php

ob_start();

eval(file_get_contents($file));

$result = ob_get_contents();

ob_end_clean();

?>

or

<?php

ob_start();

include($file);

$result = ob_get_contents();

ob_end_clean();

?>

which i consider the same, correct me if I'm wrong.



Best regards, BasicArtsStudios

trucex [um, at] gmail [um, dot] com 16-Sep-2006 02:08


Unfortunately, the PHP guys didn't build support into any of the image output functions to return the image instead of outputting it.





Fortunately, we have output buffering to fix that. 





<?php





$im = imagecreatetruecolor(200, 200);





// Other image functions here...





ob_start();


imagepng($im);


$imageData = ob_get_contents();


ob_clean();





?>





You can now use the $imageData variable to either create another GD image, save it, put it in a database, make modifications to the binary, or output it to the user. You can easily check the size of it as well without having to access the disk...just use strlen();

webmaster at wistex dot com 07-Sep-2006 04:07


Now this just blew my mind. I had a problem with MySQL being incredibly slow on Windows 2003 running IIS... on ASP/VBScript pages. PHP is also installed on the server and so is Microsoft SQL 2005 Express. (Yes, we're running ASP, PHP, MySQL and MS SQL on the same Windows 2003 Server using IIS.)



I was browsing the internet for a solution and saw a suggestion that I change output_buffering to on if MySQL was slow for PHP pages.  Since we also served PHP pages with MySQL from the same server, it caught my eye.  For the hell of it, I went into php.ini and changed output_buffering to on and suddenly MySQL and ASP was faster... MySQL and PHP was faster... Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express and ASP was faster.... everything was faster... even stuff that had no PHP!



And I didn't even have to restart IIS. As soon as I saved the php.ini file with the change, everything got faster.



Apparently PHP and MySQL and IIS are so intertwined somehow that changing the buffering setting really effects the performance of the entire server.



So, if you are having performance problems on Windows 2003 & IIS, you might try setting output_buffering = On in php.ini if you happen to have PHP installed.  Having it set to off apparently effects the performance of Windows 2003 and IIS severely... even for webpages that do not use PHP or MySQL.

kamermans at teratechnologies dot net 21-Aug-2006 01:30


Output buffering is set to '4096' instead of 'Off' or '0' by default in the php-5.0.4-10.5 RPM for Fedora Core release 4 (Stentz).  This has cost me much time!

kend52 at verizon dot net 23-Jun-2005 11:25


I ran out of memory, while output buffering and drawing text on imported images. Only the top portion of the 5MP image was displayed by the browser.  Try increasing the memory limit in either the php.ini file( memory_limit = 16M; ) or in the .htaccess file( php_value memory_limit "16M" ). Also see function memory_get_usage() .

gruik at libertysurf dot fr 10-Jul-2004 05:53


For those who are looking for optimization, try using buffered output.



I noticed that an output function call (i.e echo()) is somehow time expensive. When using buffered output, only one output function call is made and it seems to be much faster.

Try this :



<?php

your_benchmark_start_function();



for ($i = 0; $i < 5000; $i++)

    echo str_repeat ("your string blablabla bla bla", (rand() % 4) + 1)."<br>\n";



echo your_benchmark_end_function();

?>



And then :



<?php

your_benchmark_start_function();



ob_start ();

for ($i = 0; $i < 5000; $i++)

    echo str_repeat ("your string blablabla bla bla", (rand() % 4) + 1)."<br>\n";



echo your_benchmark_end_function();

ob_end_flush ();

?>

tijmen 09-Jul-2003 04:44


Trying to benchmark your server when using output_buffering ?

Don't forget that the value 4096 in the php.ini will give you complete different loadtimes compares to the value of 1.

In the first case the output will be sent after buffering 4096 and the loadtime timed at the end of the page will contain the loadtime needed to download the complete page in the clientbrowser while the second value will contain the loadtime needed to place the complete page in the buffer. The time needed for sending is not clocked.

This can be very frustrating if you don't see the differance between server and the 1st is using 4096 instead of 1.

Although technically much faster than the second server the second server was providing much better loadtime results.

This result will grow when using large amounts of output.

But this becomes interesting if you want to measure the time needed for the page to be loaded for the client.

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