PHP: Working around ob_gzhandler bug

[RFH Reseller: nick]

I've just thought of a fairly obvious solution to the bug that causes output buffering to break when trying to clean a buffer that uses the ob_gzhandler compression handler.

It's a bit crude perhaps; it works on the principle of using a top level buffer with gzhandler, then always using a nested 'plain' buffer for directly capturing output. This way, the plain buffers can always be cleaned, but the compression will still be applied when the script ends.

At the begining of your script, start buffering with two buffers:

ob_start('ob_gzhandler');
ob_start(); 

Then if you need to clean the buffers down to any that use ob_gzhandler, use something like this:

$end=false;
do {
    $status = ob_get_status();
    if($status['name'] == 'ob_gzhandler') {
        $end=true;
    } else {
        @ob_end_clean();
    }
} while (!$end); 

[RFH Reseller: nick]

A very important update to this. I've just noticed a glaring flaw that would enduce an infinite loop should for some reason a no ob_gzhandler is started.

fix:

$end=false;
do {
    $status = ob_get_status();
    if(@$status['name'] == 'ob_gzhandler') {
        $end=true;
    } else {
        if(!@ob_end_clean()) {
           $end=true;
        }
    }
} while (!$end);