delay execution of a loop

[richie]

I'm trying to delay execution of a loop as follows:

for($i=0; $i<10; $i++) {

echo $i;

flush();
sleep(5);

}

Each iteration should should be 5 seconds apart.
However, I want the result sent out at the end of each iteration.
The above only sends the result after the last iteration.

Kindly offer suggestions.

Thanks.

[sneakyimp]

php.net docs have some comments on this:

http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.sleep.php

it is a bad idea to use sleep() for delayed output effects as

1) you have to flush() output before you sleep

2) depending on your setup flush() will not work all the way to the browser as the web server might apply buffering of its own or the browser might not render output it thinks not to be complete

netscape for example will only display complete lines and will not show table parts until the </table> tag arrived

so use sleep if you have to wait for events and don't want to burn to much cycles, but don't use it for silly delayed output effects!

[sneakyimp]

also, if it's as high as 5 seconds, you might want to try using META REFRESH and some session functionality. keep track of the state on each access...the browser will take care of refreshing every few seconds.