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Compressing Web Output with gzip

You want to send compressed content to browsers that support automatic decompression.

Solution
Add this setting to your php.ini file:

zlib.output_compression=1

Discussion
Browsers tell the server that they can accept compressed responses with the Accept-Encoding header. If a browser sends Accept-Encoding: gzip or Accept-Encoding: deflate,and PHP is built with the zlib extension,the zlib.output_compression configuration directive tells PHP to compress the output with the appropriate algorithm before sending it back to the browser. The browser uncompresses the data before displaying it. You can adjust the compression level with the zlib.output_compression_level configuration directive:

; minimal compression
zlib.output_compression_level=1
; maximal compression
zlib.output_compression_level=9

At higher compression levels,less data needs to be sent from the server to the browser, but more server CPU time must be used to compress the data.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, March 6th, 2008 at 11:06 am and is filed under PHP cookbook. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Compressing Web Output with gzip”

  1. krizalid_01 Says:
    April 6th, 2008 at 11:05 pm

    You are the brick! Reading stuff like this written in the way like this is a great pleasure for me.

  2. Jay Says:
    April 9th, 2008 at 1:19 pm

    Some people think that they are way too smart. They think their comments are wonders of the world! Dudes don’t be so self-confident.

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