Runtime Configuration

The behaviour of these functions is affected by settings in php.ini.

The zlib extension offers the option to transparently compress your pages on-the-fly, if the requesting browser supports this. Therefore there are three options in the configuration file php.ini.

**Zlib Configuration Options**
Name	Default	Changeable	Changelog
zlib.output_compression	"0"	PHP_INI_ALL	Available since PHP 4.0.5.
zlib.output_compression_level	"-1"	PHP_INI_ALL	Available since PHP 4.3.0.
zlib.output_handler	""	PHP_INI_ALL	Available since PHP 4.3.0.

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.

zlib.output_compression boolean/integer

Whether to transparently compress pages. If this option is set to "On" in php.ini or the Apache configuration, pages are compressed if the browser sends an "Accept-Encoding: gzip" or "deflate" header. "Content-Encoding: gzip" (respectively "deflate") and "Vary: Accept-Encoding" headers are added to the output. In runtime, it can be set only before sending any output.

This option also accepts integer values instead of boolean "On"/"Off", using this you can set the output buffer size (default is 4KB).

Note:
output_handler must be empty if this is set 'On' ! Instead you must use zlib.output_handler.

zlib.output_compression_level integer

Compression level used for transparent output compression. Specify a value between 0 (no compression) to 9 (most compression). The default value, -1, lets the server decide which level to use.

zlib.output_handler string

You cannot specify additional output handlers if zlib.output_compression is activated here. This setting does the same as output_handler but in a different order.

User Contributed Notes

finlanderid at gmail dot com

1 year ago


Does anyone find these two statements contradictory? Am I not understanding something, or are these statements actually contradicting each other? 

Statement ONE from output_handler:
"output_handler must be empty if this [zlib.output_compression] is set 'On' ! Instead you must use zlib.output_handler."

Statement TWO from zlib.output_handler:
"You cannot specify additional output handlers if zlib.output_compression is activated ..."

Statement ONE says you have to use zlib.output_handler, if zlib.output_compression is turned ON. Statement TWO says that, if zlib.output_compression is turned ON, you cannot use zlib.output_handler. 

what the heck?

galaxy

10 months ago


finlanderid at gmail dot com,

you are mixing two separate things and consider them to be the same thing, hence the confusion.

There are two output_handlers:

1. http://php.net/manual/en/outcontrol.configuration.php#ini.output-handler

2. http://php.net/manual/en/zlib.configuration.php#ini.zlib.output-handler

Now, if you re-read your quotes again with this information it won't be confusing anymore :)

scott at pawprint dot net

4 years ago


In the hopes this will help others - a hard to spot gotcha when implementing zlib.output_compression. if you use flush() anywhere in your script (even right at the end) the compression won't work - you need to let that happen automatically or it ends up being sent uncompressed.

Nathan

4 years ago


Apparently, there is a bug in certain versions of PHP with setting zlib.output_compression to "On" via ini_set: 

<?php
ini_set("zlib.output_compression", "On");
?>

In some cases, it does not send the Content-type header and browsers won't know to decompress the contents before displaying. Instead, you can set it to the buffer size, which sends the correct header:

<?php
ini_set("zlib.output_compression", 4096);
?>