PHP 8.4.2 Released!

    ob_get_length

    (PHP 4 >= 4.0.2, PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)

    ob_get_length — Return the length of the output buffer

    Description

    ob_get_length(): int|false

    This will return the length of the contents in the output buffer, in bytes.

    Parameters

    This function has no parameters.

    Return Values

    Returns the length of the output buffer contents, in bytes, or false if no buffering is active.

    Examples

    Example #1 A simple ob_get_length() example

    <?php

    ob_start    ();

    echo     "Hello ";

    $len1 = ob_get_length();

    echo     "World";

    $len2 = ob_get_length();

    ob_end_clean();

    echo     $len1 . ", " . $len2;
    ?>

    The above example will output:

    6, 11

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    User Contributed Notes 5 notes

    up
    7
    Nitrogen
    15 years ago
    I use this function to produce a small speed test in my pages since I run my website from my home computers.

    <?php
    ob_start    ();
    $StartTime=microtime(1);
    ?>
    .. webpage data goes here ..

    <?php
    // footer?
    printf("%s seconds to produce (%skb/sec)",
    microtime(1)-$StartTime,
    Round((ob_get_length()/(microtime(1)-$StartTime))/1024));

    ob_end_flush();
    ?>

    Note: don't forget the "speed" depends on how quick the content is actually generated and not on the speed the data is sent to the client..
    However it would be good to see such function to get the real speed. :)

    Nitrogen.
    up
    7
    rush at logic dot cz
    19 years ago
    There is a work-around for the situation you need to get length of the gz-ed buffer.

    ob_start();
    ob_start('ob_gzhandler');

    ... output the page content...

    ob_end_flush(); // The ob_gzhandler one

    header('Content-Length: '.ob_get_length());

    ob_end_flush(); // The main one

    more info at http://www.edginet.org/techie/website/http.html
    up
    2
    stangelanda at arrowquick dot com
    17 years ago
    If you don't buffer your output, it doesn't seem like it would be possible for a web server to output a Content-Length header. For static files it can check the filesize, but for dynamic files that send output a little by little there is no way to know how many bytes it is going to output. And the headers have to be sent before a single byte is output.

    Also if you're wondering why the Content-Length is important, the browser doesn't close the connection as long as the script is running. So if you register time consuming shutdown functions, the browser will still 'spin' waiting for more content until they complete. (I'm not sure this happens under all conditions, but I am certain the sending the Content-Length always prevents this.)

    You might take note that this manual page does not currently output any Content-Length header.

    Alternatively using mb_strlen($output, 'latin1') seems to work to determine bytes in a string. strlen may or may not depending on if it has been set up as a multibyte or not.
    up
    1
    Sinured
    17 years ago
    > Dude, your web server will compute Content-length for you!

    I've noticed that Apache 1.3 doesn't do that.
    However, if you’re running Apache 2.2 (and maybe 2.0, haven't experienced that yet) you don't need to worry about Content-Length.
    up
    -5
    webmaster at crescentart dot com
    23 years ago
    Here is an easy way to get the header Content-Lenght.
    <?
    ob_start();
    ?>

    Put HTML tags.

    <?
    $size=ob_get_length();
    header("Content-Length: $size");
    ob_end_flush();
    ?>
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