buffer

Anon

I have a php script accessing a large text file. Is there a way to have a "loading..." appear while it's reading the file and then have it go away when the script is done? I have tried flush() but had no luck.

Thanks

van__

Just say no!

no man, no with php and HTML.
Not at all.
Sure try JavaScript, but you will be wanting to put a gun to you head by the end of the day... and still not be holding the quary in your hand.

The only real way to do this is with Java and/or Flash or any other tool with a socket to actively query and display a message and then re-init itself after a status signal has been sent.

Personally, I wouldn't consider doing this without atleast Flash and preferably with PHP running as a socket daemon.
But, I bet you don't know how to make a PHP script run as a process... and maybe you'll decide to figure that one out. But my bet here is that getting the results you desire would blow you project scope out to the 5th dimension.

[deleted]

Javascript is evil, but not impossible.
Shouldn't it be possible to send a window.open at the beginning of the page and a window.close at the end of the page?

Anyway, a very simple and usually quite effective way of getting this completely useless feature to work (we all know it's loading, that's why the little logon in the upper righthand corner is moving) is by using an intermediate page.

When a user clicks the link that will load the 'slow' page, make it link to a small 'Please wait' page instead. That page should just print 'Please wait' and then redirect to the slow page immediately.
The trick is to use output buffering on the slow page so that it does not actually print anything untill it is finished.
Browsers don't clear the screen unless they have new data to print, so the 'please wait' will remain on the screen untill it starts receiving the data for the new page.

A forum, a FAQ, what else do you need?