I have this:
echo "<font color=\"#000000\">text</font>";
usleep(2000000);
header("location:/otherpage.php");
?>`
Please note that this will be included in an iframe...
The problem is that it isn't echoing the echo statement, but then sleeping for two seconds and then redirecting (which is all correct except for the echo part)...
Anyone have an idea why this is happening?? It's not the iframe because when you go straight to the file (separately from the iframe) the same happens. Could it be the usleep??
Thanks
This won't work since you can't change the header after outputting text. The only option is to use a meta refresh or javascript when you want to exact replicate this behaviour.
But the output problem you can solve by flushing the buffer but then no redirection is possible as i mentioned before.
Another very important thing is: DONT USE USLEEP FOR SUCH THINGS. Why? Because when your script is heavily loaded every request which needs too much time is very bad and you will run out of php threads (depending on your php webserver implementation). So, for such timeouts you should use clientside code (if possible).
What you are doing above will not work. First, you would need to do a flush in order to make sure the data was sent. Second, though, and more important, you can't change the header after the flush, which would result in either the header not being sent or the text not being sent.
If all you want to do is change the data after a delay, did you consider doing the following:
header('Refresh: 2; url=http://my.site.com/otherpage.php);
echo "<font color=\"#000000\">text</font>";
This will send the information in the browser, instructing the browser to change to the new URL after 2 seconds.
It's sleeping while on the server, and then sending the output. Also you can't send headers after echoing something.
You should use javascript or a meta redirect, this will allow you to wait a few seconds before redirecting, and the time and url for both of those can be generated by your php script.
You can't to that. I have a feeling you're misunderstanding the purpose of PHP and it's role as a server-side language.
If you want to "redirect" to another page in PHP, you do so using HTTP headers, which you did. The thing is, those are the headers, so they must be sent before any text body (like an echo statement). You're trying to do something that should be done client-side on the server.
Instead, make an HTML page with some JavaScript code to do the redirection, like that:
<script>
setTimeout(function() {
window.location = "otherpage.html";
}, 2000);
</script>
Expanding my comment into an answer:
It's not possible to redirect like this (outputting some content and then trying to send in a header) because headers must be sent before all content. PHP will also complain about this, using default settings you should see a warning.
Second, the usleep delay might not be observable due to the server buffering the content throughout the sleep and only sending it in one big chunk afterwards. In general, it isn't reliable to make the browser display content "in steps" like this, although it can be made to work more or less if you pile the hacks high enough.
May I suggest that if this kind of behavior is what you need, you should look into making a (series of?) appropriate AJAX call, which can be orchestrated perfectly.
What everyone else said. Just adding that usleep() will make clients hold connections open on your server---it's a very inefficient use of limited server resources. Your PHP should always send everything it can as quickly as possible so your web server can close the connection.