[RESOLVED] Sleep()

[Popcorn]

I a have question to ask about sleep()

I tried to make a script which would print a line of text at 1 line per second or whatever time i put. So i went ahead and tried this.

    echo "Passwords match.";
        sleep(1);
    echo "Passwords match.";
        sleep(1);
    echo "Passwords match.";
        sleep(1);
    echo "Passwords match.";

This is a example and the text in echo has no meaning.

However the sleep waits and waits for all the other sleeps to finish and then prints out all text at once.

[bpat1434]

Try using a function:

function mySleeper($text, $max)
{
  for($i=1; $i<=$max; $i++)
  {
    echo $text;
    sleep(1);
  }
}

[Popcorn]

No, that didn't work?

I just had some advice on msn that it does work perfectly but the browser does not render the text untill the page has completely loaded. So i only assume i have to use javascript which could do this more easily?

[thorpe]

You need to look at output buffering.

[Popcorn]

<?

ob_start();

echo "Passwords match.";
sleep(2);
echo "Passwords match.";
sleep(2);
echo "Passwords match.";
sleep(2);
echo "Passwords match.";
sleep(2);

?>

Am i missing something here? Stil waiting for all the sleeps and then producing the the text at once.

[Edit] : While output buffering is active no output is sent from the script (other than headers),

So hows that ment to help if i want to print one line at a time? Sorry for being demanding but i really want to see if this can work.

[Installer]

PHP only executes its scripts and sends output to the webserver, which decides when and what to send to the webbrowser, which decides when and what to display.

P.S. thorpe suggested using output buffering, not simply "ob_start()". Something like this:

ob_start(); 

echo "Passwords match.";
sleep(2);
ob_flush(); 
echo "Passwords match."; 
sleep(2);
ob_flush(); 
echo "Passwords match."; 
sleep(2); 
ob_flush(); 
echo "Passwords match."; 
sleep(2); 
ob_end_flush();

See the manual, esp. the user notes, for flush and ob_flush.

[Popcorn]

I came up with a solution. For anyone who may want to do the same thing then you can see my completed code below...

ob_start();
echo str_repeat('<!-- Buffer -->', 1000);
echo "a";
sleep(1);

ob_flush();
echo str_repeat('<!-- Buffer -->', 1000);
echo "a";
sleep(1);

ob_flush();
echo str_repeat('<!-- Buffer -->', 1000);
echo "a";
sleep(1);

ob_flush();
echo str_repeat('<!-- Buffer -->', 1000);
echo "a";
sleep(1);