How to flush output in ZF

Question

I have a controller that, among other things, sends emails. I need to echo a message to the user before the email sending starts (otherwise it looks like the screen is stuck).
So, how do I echo a message which is set in the start of a controller, before I reach the end of the controller, or, should I think in another direction all together?

Answer 1

Try maybe:

<?php
//...
public function someAction()
{
    echo "Something";
    ob_flush();flush();
}

This forum post discusses your issue. They suggest:

<?php
$frontController = Zend_Controller_Front::getInstance();
$frontController->setParam('disableOutputBuffering', true);

And then performing the ob_flush();flush(); technique.

Answer 2

You could try using a shutdown function to send the email. If you also flush the output buffer this will make sure the user gets to see the rendered page first. In your code call:

register_shutdown_function('send_email', $params);

And then have a function that looks like:

function send_email($params) {
    ob_flush();flush();
    // Send your email here
}

Answer 3

For the mail part of the question.

Depending on the timing - how soon after the request the message needs to be sent - another possiblity would be to create a message queue (maybe a db table), write a record to that table, and then run a cron process that consumes the queue, sending any unsent messages, marking them as sent, etc.