Easy php output compression

Below is what I regard as a reliable method of doing gzip output compression.

One thing that normally breaks gzip compression is something printing/echoing before the ob_start (usually the result of an error, debug output, errant space somewhere etc…), this is where the ob_get_length and ob_flush come in.

The problem is that headers_sent is not a reliable way to tell if any thing has been output because it may still be in the output buffer, so if we flush it before hand problem solved.

<?php

function doPage()
{
   echo 'Hello World';
}

if (ob_get_length() > 0)
   @ob_flush();

if (!headers_sent() && @ob_start("ob_gzhandler"))
{
   doPage();
   ob_end_flush();
   //Probably a good idea to exit here as more output would break it
   exit;
}
else
{
   doPage();
}