Detect browser connection closed in PHP

Question

Does anyone know if it is possible to detect whether the browser has closed the connection during the execution of a long PHP script, when using apache and mod_php?

For example, in Java, the HttpOutputStream will throw an exception if one attempts to write to it after the browser has closed it -- Or will respond negatively to checkError().

Hexad

Answer 1

Use connection_aborted()

Aero

It doesn't work in Fedora22, PHP 5.6.12 even when outputing data, and ignore_user_abort(false). – Tucker

Answer 2

In at least PHP4, connection_aborted and connection_status only worked after the script sent any output to the browser (using: flush() | ob_flush()). Also don't expect accurately timed results.

It's mostly useful to check if there is still someone waiting on the other side.

Cerellia

It's mostly useful to check if there is still someone waiting on the other side.: how? – Scuff

How: "echo" something or output a header(), call 'flush()' and then use you can get connection_aborted() to determine if the HTTP-client is still 'listening' or maybe timed out. – Cerellia

Answer 3

http://nz.php.net/register-shutdown-function

Probably less complicated if you just want a script to die and handle it when a user terminates.

( Ie: if it was a lengthy search, this would save you a bunch of operation cycles )

Mandle