ConFoo 2025

ob_end_flush

(PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)

ob_end_flush Flush (send) the return value of the active output handler and turn the active output buffer off

Description

ob_end_flush(): bool

This function calls the output handler (with the PHP_OUTPUT_HANDLER_FINAL flag), flushes (sends) it's return value, discards the contents of the active output buffer and turns off the active output buffer.

ob_end_flush() will fail without an active output buffer started with the PHP_OUTPUT_HANDLER_REMOVABLE flag.

ob_end_flush() will flush (send) the return value of the output handler even if the active output buffer was started without the PHP_OUTPUT_HANDLER_FLUSHABLE flag.

Parameters

This function has no parameters.

Return Values

Returns true on success or false on failure.

Errors/Exceptions

If the function fails it generates an E_NOTICE.

Examples

Example #1 ob_end_flush() example

The following example shows an easy way to flush and end all output buffers:

<?php
while (@ob_end_flush());
?>

See Also

  • ob_start() - Turn on output buffering
  • ob_get_contents() - Return the contents of the output buffer
  • ob_flush() - Flush (send) the return value of the active output handler
  • ob_get_flush() - Flush (send) the return value of the active output handler, return the contents of the active output buffer and turn it off
  • ob_end_clean() - Clean (erase) the contents of the active output buffer and turn it off

add a note

User Contributed Notes 10 notes

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13
jhannus at 128kb dot com
20 years ago
A note on the above example...

with PHP 4 >= 4.2.0, PHP 5 you can use a combination of ob_get_level() and ob_end_flush() to avoid using the @ (error suppresion) which should probably be a little faaster.

<?php

while (ob_get_level() > 0) {
ob_end_flush();
}

?>
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9
nico (at) nokes.de
12 years ago
best way to compress a css code:

<?php
header
('Content-type: text/css');

ob_start("compress");
function
compress($buffer) {
// remove comments
$buffer = preg_replace('!/\*[^*]*\*+([^/][^*]*\*+)*/!', '', $buffer);
// remove tabs, spaces, newlines, etc.
$buffer = str_replace(array("\r\n", "\r", "\n", "\t", ' ', ' ', ' '), '', $buffer);
return
$buffer;
}

include(
'./template/main.css');
include(
'./template/classes.css');

<?
php
ob_end_flush
();
?>

Include in <head>:
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/design.php" media="all" />
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2
anatoliy at miraline dot com
13 years ago
If you enable zlib.output_compression then level count will be increased by 1 and then this code:

<?php while (ob_get_level()) { ob_end_clean(); } ?>

will just freeze your script.
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2
brett at realestate-school dot com
22 years ago
It appears that you can call ob_end_flush() regardless of whether or not output buffering was ever started using ob_start(). This can prove useful because it saves you from having to create conditional statements based on whether a particular function or include file has started output buffering. You can simply call the ob_end_flush() anyway and if there's output in the buffer, it will be sent, otherwise your script will just keep on keepin' on.
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2
Mark
14 years ago
Wanted to speed things up and put some processing after the page has been delivered to the client. That drove me almost insane, but finally, I found a solution (php 5.2.5):

<?php
ob_start
(); // outer buffer
ob_start(); // inner buffer to catch URL rewrites and other post processing
session_start(); // registers URL rewriter with inner buffer!
echo '...';
// log performance data to log files *after* delivering the page!
register_shutdown_function(array($benchmarkclass,'log_perf_data'));
// now flush output output to client
ob_end_flush();
// need to calculate content length *after* URL rewrite!
header("Content-length: ".ob_get_length());
ob_end_flush();
// now we close the session and do some arbitrary clean-up tasks
// registered using register_shutdown_function()
session_write_close();
?>
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1
skippy at zuavra dot net
19 years ago
Apart from being mostly redundant, ob_end_flush() can be downright damaging in some weird cases.

Actual example: a particular page on an Intranet website which would appear blank on Internet Explorer 6 when ob_start('ob_gzhandler') was called in the beginning and ob_end_flush() at the end.

We couldn't figure out what made that page special no matter what we tried. The ob_ functions were placed in scripts which were include()'d by all pages just the same, but only that page did this.

Even stranger, the problem only appeared on direct browser/server connections. Whenever the connection passed through a proxy the problem dissapeared. I'm guessing some kind of HTTP encoding headers mumbo-jumbo.

Solution: unless you really need it in particular cases, remove the ob_end_flush() call and rely on the builtin, automatic buffer flush.
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0
Patrick
1 year ago
NOTE: In IIS, flushing the output buffer doesnt work until you add the following to your web.config file under the PHP handler:

responseBufferLimit="0"

I discovered this when I would only get SSE output when the script failed.
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0
shanep
14 years ago
It appears that ob_end_flush() is very important if you are looping. For instance if you are using a mass mailer that uses the output buffer for creating HTML content. Use ob_end_flush() to avoid server errors.
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0
kriek at jonkriek dot com
21 years ago
ob_end_flush() isn't needed in MOST cases because it is called automatically at the end of script execution by PHP itself when output buffering is turned on either in the php.ini or by calling ob_start().
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-5
unxed
14 years ago
Remember that chromium browser (and maybe other webkit-based browsers) have some issues with ob_end_flush.

http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=31410

You may use
header("Content-Type: text/plain");
to solve those issues if you do not need html.
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