Can I force an HTTP Status Code before the script completes?

[jedgar]

Hello,

 

BACKGROUND INFO:

I have a script that gets called from a 3rd party software vendor.  This vendor is expecting an HTTP 200 status code returned within 10 seconds.  The script always runs successfully, and therefore Apache sends the 200 status code back.  The issue is that the script will sometimes take longer than 10 seconds to complete, due to large database tables and locking.  So even though our web server is sending the 200 code back, it's after the 10 second mark.  This causes the 2rd party vendor to resend the request, resulting in duplicate data on our end.

 

QUESTION:

Is there a way in php to force a status 200 code to the 'requester', BEFORE the script actually finishes?  Meaning, I want to essentially override the web server's duty of sending the code back - or at least tell it not to wait for the script to completely finish.  There may even be a configuration setting for sending it back immediately, but I couldn't find any info on that.

 

Thanks in advance for your help!

-Joe

 

[premiso]

You can use exec along with PHP CLI to send the script to a separate process...that way the page "is done" but the process is still running.

 

I am not 100% sure if that would work, but yea. Worth a shot I guess.

[printf]

how about...

 

<?php

ob_start ();

header ( 'Status: 200' );

ob_flush ();

flush ();

// rest of script here

?>

[jedgar]

That looks promising, I'll give it a try.  Thanks a lot.

 

One question though...

After I flush the output buffer, will Apache still send the 200 status back to the requester when the script finishes?  Or does ob_start/ob_end_flush cause Apache to not send the status?

 

Thanks again!

-Joe