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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-17T22:19:08+00:00

For example, this doesn’t work (Firefox 21, IE8): <?php function flush_buffers(){ ob_end_flush(); ob_flush(); flush();

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For example,

this doesn’t work (Firefox 21, IE8):

<?php
function flush_buffers(){
    ob_end_flush();
    ob_flush();
    flush();
    ob_start();
}  
ob_start();
echo 'Text 1<br />';
flush_buffers();
Sleep(2);
echo 'Text 2<br />';
flush_buffers();
Sleep(2);
echo 'Text 3<br />';
flush_buffers();
Sleep(2);
echo 'Text 4<br />';
?>

But this one works:

<?php
function flush_buffers(){
    echo str_pad('',4096);
    ob_end_flush();
    ob_flush();
    flush();
    ob_start();
}  
ob_start();
echo 'Text 1<br />';
flush_buffers();
Sleep(2);
echo 'Text 2<br />';
flush_buffers();
Sleep(2);
echo 'Text 3<br />';
flush_buffers();
Sleep(2);
echo 'Text 4<br />';
?>

I have PHP 5.4.11 VC9 and Apache 2.4.3 (apacheLounge) running on Win XP SP3.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Some browsers include their own internal buffer in order to download and display more efficiently with less choppiness. In most cases, this buffer is 4Kb, or 4096 bytes.

    What str_pad('',4096) does is write 4,096 spaces to the output. Since it’s HTML, these spaces collapse into a single space.

    Overall, this behaviour should NOT be relied upon. Browsers are for viewing webpages, not bastardising into console terminals.

    Also, why are you writing </br>? There is no such thing as an end <br> tag, and the self-closing version is <br />

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