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.
ob_end_flush
(PHP 4, PHP 5)
ob_end_flush — Volcar (enviar) el búfer de salida y deshabilitar el uso del búfer
Descripción
Esta función enviará los contenidos del búfer de salida en cola (si existe) y deshabilita este búfer. Si desea procesar los contenidos del búfer es necesario que llame ob_get_contents() antes de ob_end_flush() ya que los contenidos del búfer son descartados después de llamar ob_end_flush().
Note: Esta función es similar a ob_get_flush(), excepto que ob_get_flush() devuelve el búfer como una cadena.
Valores retornados
Devuelve TRUE si todo se llevó a cabo correctamente, FALSE en caso de fallo. Entre las posibles razones de fallo se encuentra llamar la función sin un búfer activo, o que por algún motivo el búfer no pueda ser eliminado (posible en el caso de búferes especiales).
Errors/Exceptions
Si la función falla, genera un error de nivel E_NOTICE.
Registro de cambios
| Versión | Descripción |
|---|---|
| 4.2.0 | El valor de retorno booleano fue agregado. |
Ejemplos
Example #1 Ejemplo de ob_end_flush()
El siguiente ejemplo muestra una forma sencilla de volcar y finalizar todos los búferes:
<?php
while (@ob_end_flush());
?>
ob_end_flush
01-Jul-2005 11:10
05-Jun-2004 06:18
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();
}
?>
29-Mar-2003 06:22
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().
26-Sep-2002 10:01
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.
