LVII. Output Control Functions

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 outputing 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.

Example 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.)

See also header() and setcookie().