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# ob_start

(PHP 4 )

ob_start -- Turn on output buffering

## Description

void ob_start ( [string output_callback])

This function will turn output buffering on. While output buffering is active no output is sent from the script (other than headers), instead the output is stored in an internal buffer.

The contents of this internal buffer may be copied into a string variable using ob_get_contents(). To output what is stored in the internal buffer, use ob_end_flush(). Alternatively, ob_end_clean() will silently discard the buffer contents.

An optional `output_callback` function may be specified. This function takes a string as a parameter and should return a string. The function will be called when ob_end_flush() is called, or when the output buffer is flushed to the browser at the end of the request. When `output_callback` is called, it will receive the contents of the output buffer as its parameter and is expected to return a new output buffer as a result, which will be sent to the browser.

> Note: In PHP 4.0.4, ob_gzhandler() was introduced to facilitate sending gz-encoded data to web browsers that support compressed web pages. ob_gzhandler() determines what type of content encoding the browser will accept and will return it's output accordingly.

Output buffers are stackable, that is, you may call ob_start() while another ob_start() is active. Just make sure that you call ob_end_flush() the appropriate number of times. If multiple output callback functions are active, output is being filtered sequentially through each of them in nesting order.

ob_end_clean(), ob_end_flush(), ob_clean(), ob_flush() and ob_start() may not be called from a callback function. If you call them from callback function, the behavior is undefined. If you would like to delete the contents of a buffer, return "" (a null string) from callback function.

Example 1. User defined callback function example
    <?php

    function callback($buffer) {

      // replace all the apples with oranges
      return (ereg_replace("apples", "oranges", $buffer));

    }

    ob_start("callback");

    ?>

    <html>
    <body>
    <p>It's like comparing apples to oranges.
    </body>
    </html>

    <?php

    ob_end_flush();

    ?>

Would produce:

    <html>
    <body>
    <p>It's like comparing oranges to oranges.
    </body>
    </html>

See also ob_get_contents(), ob_end_flush(), ob_end_clean(), ob_implicit_flush() and ob_gzhandler().

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