Output Buffering

[lisnaskea]

Is there anyway to buffer the output of a php script so it can be explicitly ended by you or kept alive conditionally?

[lisnaskea]

I didn't explain myself very well there.

What i'm wondering is could you use output buffering to write a chat client?

Say you had a file or database which contains the chat transcript. You could have a script (view.php) that uses output buffering to get the last line of the transcript, flush it, get the next line, flush it, etc etc etc..... ad infintum without ending the http response.

Or am i mad?

[trellie]

nope... you're not mad, that's possible 🙂

[lisnaskea]

i AM mad but that's no the point.

If it's possible then, does anyone have any ideas where 2 start cus i can't keep the http connection open.