RFC on ob_get/ob_end_clean, was Re: [PHP-CVS] cvs: php4 /ext/session session.c ...

Yasuo Ohgaki wrote:

Added ob_get_status() to get array of buffers and it's status. (DO NOT document this function yet) Fixed crash bug with ob_end_*() function. ob_end_*() will not delete buffers that may not be deleted. php_start_ob_buffer() and php_ob_set_internal_handler() takes parameter for if the buffer created may be deleted or not. Added 3rd parameter "bool erase" to ob_start(). If FALSE, buffer may not be deleted until script finshes. Changed ob_*() function that have void return type to bool. All ob_*() functions return TRUE for success, FALSE for failure.

from looking at the codebase here in our company i find that we have just two use cases for the ob_...() stuff: - calling ob_start("callback") only and have callback() do the all the work on script termination - or the following sequence:

    ob_start();
    /* some output */;
    $var = ob_get_contents();
    ob_clean();

especially

    ob_start(); print_r($var); error_log(ob_get_contents()); ob_end_clean();

so i've been thinking about a combination of of ob_get_contents() and ob_end_clean() for a long time i have come up with several different naming/implementation variants - a new function - string ob_get_clean(void) or - string ob_end_get(void) - an optional boolean parameter to an existing function - string ob_get_contents(bool $clean = false) or - string ob_end_clean(bool $return_contents = false) - an optional int parameter to an existing functions and some predefined constants - string ob_get_contents(int $option = 0)

    with OB_NONE -> no operation (0)

         OB_CLEAN -> clean output buffer

         OB_FLUSH -> flush output buffer

         OB_END -> end output buffering (current level)

         OB_APPLY_CALLBACK -> apply callback registered with
            ob_start, if any, on returned buffer contents

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