Runtime Configuration
The behaviour of these functions is affected by settings in php.ini.
Output Control configuration options
Name |
Default |
Changeable |
Changelog |
output_buffering |
"0" |
PHP_INI_PERDIR |
|
output_handler |
NULL |
PHP_INI_PERDIR |
Available since PHP 4.0.4. |
implicit_flush |
"0" |
PHP_INI_ALL |
PHP_INI_PERDIR in PHP <= 4.2.3. |
For further details and definitions of the
PHP_INI_* modes, see the
Where a configuration setting may be 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).
As of PHP 4.3.5, this directive is always Off in PHP-CLI.
-
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.
Note:
You cannot use both mb_output_handler() with
ob_iconv_handler() and you cannot use both
ob_gzhandler() and
zlib.output_compression.
Note:
Only built-in functions can be used with this directive. For user
defined functions, use ob_start().
-
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.
See also ob_implicit_flush().
User Contributed Notes
support at losalgendesign dot com2 years ago
Using "OFF" or no value on output_buffering will disable header modifications, like redirects or content-type or content-disposition resulting in the error we commonly attribute to output before header modifications:
Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at C:\PATH\filename.php:1) C:\PATH\filename.php on line 1
Example code with output_buffering = OFF which results in this behavior. Changing it to "ON" or giving it a value will likely cause normal behavior.
<?php header("Location: http://www.php.net"); ?>
or
<?php header("Content-Type: text/Calendar"); ?>
<?php header("Content-Disposition: inline; filename=appointment.ics"); ?>