note 42774 added to function.register-shutdown-function

Various commenters have described how this function doesn't work for time-consuming background processing, because the webpage doesn't close the connection. The workaround using output buffering and header('Connection: close'); seems to work, but the solution I prefer is to put the background processing in a separate script which gets included as a transparent gif. <?php //logger.php -- does the time-consuming log_it() function function log_it() { sleep(12); //simulate long processing error_log('log_it() completed'); } error_reporting(0); register_shutdown_function('log_it'); header('Cache-Control: no-cache'); header('Content-type: image/gif'); //the size of the unencoded transparent gif header('Content-length: 85'); //1x1 pixel transparent gif print base64_decode('R0lGODlhAQABALMAAAAAAIAAAACAA'. 'ICAAAAAgIAAgACAgMDAwICAgP8AAA'. 'D/AP//AAAA//8A/wD//wBiZCH5BAE'. 'AAA8ALAAAAAABAAEAAAQC8EUAOw=='); flush(); exit; ?> @-----------Page you want to add background processing to ---------@ <html> <body> <h1>Hello World</h1> <!-- Call logger.php to do background processing --> <img src="logger.php" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" /> </body> </html> @------------------------------------------------------------------@ The only caveat is, of course, if the user has images turned off then the script won't be called. Tested successfully with IE6, Firefox 0.8, and Opera 7.11 ---- Manual Page -- http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.register-shutdown-function.php Edit -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php?action=edit+42774 Delete -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php?action=delete+42774&report=yes Reject -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php?action=reject+42774&report=yes Search -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php