noodlebop

Visitors to my website will upload file to a simple upload.html: <form action="execute.php" method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data"> <label for="file">Filename:</label> <input type="file" name="file" id="file" /><br /> <input type="submit" name="submit" value="Submit"" /> </form> As you can see, the arguments are posted to execute.php. In this, I have lines that look like this: $ob_file = fopen("../../log.txt",'w') or die ("cannot create log.txt"); function ob_file_callback($buffer) { global $ob_file; fwrite($ob_file,$buffer); } ob_start('ob_file_callback'); system ("../../sourceShell") or die ("sourceShell fail") ; ob_end_flush(); execute.php runs a shell script called 'sourceShell', which runs a fortran program on the server. execute.php outputs the 'log' of this program (that typically would appear on the terminal) on log.txt. I use the ob_file_callback function to do this. When a visitor clicks 'submit' (or upon the completion of uploading), I need execute.php to echo "Your job is running..please wait". And then I want to refresh the page every 5 mins until the job finishes and the result will be shown. My problem is that, when a visitor clicks 'submit', it waits until the fortran program completely finishes (which takes a long time) before it outputs the "Your job is running..please wait". I suspect this is because of the ob_file_callback function. If I don't use that function, it seems like the log prints in real time to my browser as the program runs. I do hope this make sense... and I've spent days on this wanting to tear off my hair, so it's not like I haven't googled hard. I'm completely new to web programming, so I hope you guys understand and can be patient if I don't understand.