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How to output compressed content using PHP?
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ProclaimDragon,
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Question
ProclaimDragon
In my latest PHP script I decided to use compression for the output, one of the reasons is that I'm using lots of JavaScript and all that code compress looks sweet. I don't have any concrete question but I need someone that already knows about the subject to enlighten me a bit on the best way to compress the output via PHP.
For instance, at first sight, I decided to go with the method I though it was best. Use an .htaccess file with the following:
This way, all the output via PHP file would be compress and this would work for everything I'm doing, including JavaScript and CSS. Anyway, this method brings some issues to the table:
1) I just tested my script on a remote server and it didn't work. It was a free PHP5 server and something tells me that the webhost has PHP ini settings modifications through .htaccess blocked. And there are many servers like this one...
2) I would like to avoid the use of .htaccess. For instance, what if someone is using ISS, this will certainly not work for them.
Another option would be to use the ini_set() function to set the PHP configuration but in all the tests I did, something didn't work and I don't understand why. All my scripts aggregate all the content to be outputed to the browser in a single variable and then I simply "echo" that variable. I tried to use ini_set to set "zlib.output_compression" to "On" and also "zlib.output_compression_level" to "9", right before echoing the content variable. But something didn't work. Maybe the syntax for ini_set() was incorrect? I mean, the dots to separate the ini setting or the underscores or double-quotes or even case sensitivity is in place? I don't know if ini_set() is sensible to all this things. Anyway, this would have been the best option for every browser, OS and server, as long as the zlib module was enabled of course.
I also found another way to do it, using the ob_start("ob_gzhandler") function, but:
1) I saw lots of code examples and I don't really know the best way to use it. I mean, I was able to use it bu, it add several lines of code that I didn't really understand what were they for and if the were really necessary. I tried to comment them and the script worked anyways with output compression but I don't really know if thoses lines would be important in the future.
2) From the PHP official documentation, they say: "Note: You cannot use both ob_gzhandler() and zlib.output_compression. Also note that using zlib.output_compression is preferred over ob_gzhandler().". And that's the reason that I would prefer to use zlib.output_compression instead of ob_gzhandler. But I would also like to understand why they recommend zlib instead of ob_gzhandler.
Now, the idea is to compress all the output done by PHP, all CSS and JavaScript files. The PHP output is very simple, all the pages in my script are accessed through index.php and by the query arguments, it will decide which page to show and then, only an echo is required to show that page. For the CSS and JavaScript, I opted to create 2 different PHP files, named scripts.php and styles.php. Both do the same exact thing. In the case of scripts.php, it will gather all the content from various .js files and output all of them. In the styles.php, the same thing is done, with the different that only one .css file is read to be outputted; but if some day I have more than one .css file (for instance, for beowser compatbility), I will gather them all in the same way I'm doing for JAvaScript. The Content-Type is correctly defined using the header() function before the output is done in both files.
Recently, a friend of mine suggested the following code:
And I want to know if there is any issue that one might not know about outputting code using this gzencode() method and that specific header. Would I have any problems using it like this or this is the way to go?
Well, I'm open to suggestions but more importantly, I would like to enlighted (if possible) about PHP output compression.
P.S: Sorry for this big testament and for the bad english, I had to translate this from a Portuguese post I did to some other f?rum and I'm kinda in a rush...
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