Timed loop in php

Question

I just want to print a counting from 1 to 10 at an interval of 10 sec between each integer.

eg.

$i=10; //Time delay    
for($j=1;$j<11;$j++)  
{  
    echo $j;  
    //do something to delay the execution by $i seconds  
}

I have tried everything including flush(), ob_flush(), ob_implicit_flush() but all i get is a frozen screen untill the whole time is executed.

can you please provide the javascript for the same integrated in php ?? — mastero, May 22 '12 at 11:07

score 8 · Answer 1 · answered May 22 '12 at 10:03

8

http://php.net/manual/en/function.sleep.php

The sleep function will interrupt execution of your script.

But have you considered using Javascript for something like this? Your script may reach maximum execution time, and will be hogging resources on the server. Use the client's resources instead!

answered May 22 '12 at 10:03

Tim

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thanks for answering, but can you give an example of javascript for this functionality in php.??? – mastero May 22 '12 at 11:07
`setTimeout()` is what you want to be looking at, as well as some way of updating the DOM: e.g. `getElementById('myid').innerHTML('foo')` – Tim May 22 '12 at 15:44

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered May 22 '12 at 10:02

What you want is much more javascript-related than PHP. Because PHP is serverside it is not designed to do these kind of operations. You COULD get it to work, but it would not be very pretty.

In my logic; counting from 1 to 10 should not involve the server at all. You can do this directly in the browser, hence use javascript.

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered May 22 '12 at 10:34

1

you want to print the countdown while your php script is running? if yes, then try that non-recommended fragment:

ob_start();
for($i=0;$i<10;$i++) {
   echo str_repeat(" ",10000);
   echo 'printing...<br />';
   ob_flush();
   flush();
   sleep(1);
}

you see, the strange line:

echo str_repeat(" ",10000);

it seems that browsers needs some "data" before deciding to really flush your data. Use javascript for real time counters.

answered May 22 '12 at 10:34

its a mystery to me but seems some browsers "needs" to render a specific amount of data (unknown) to be able to emulate a writing-to-front-buffer (just kidding). Check also [here](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3445222/php-output-with-sleep). – May 25 '12 at 16:11

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered May 22 '12 at 11:14

1

Use jQuery. On $(document).ready add a delay of 10 seconds to show a specific div which would contain the info to appear after 10 seconds.

For ready - http://api.jquery.com/ready/

For delay - http://api.jquery.com/delay/

answered May 22 '12 at 11:14

Andrius Naruševičius

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score 0 · Answer 5 · answered May 22 '12 at 10:06

0

Yes, use Javascript as it's not possible to accomplish this task with PHP using HTTP because of output buffering.

answered May 22 '12 at 10:06

Roman Newaza

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Timed loop in php

5 Answers5