ob_start echo's strings out still

Question

I'd like it if ob_start() didn't let echo's output to their normal destination and just log their contents instead. But it doesn't seem to be doing that. Any ideas? Here's my code:

<?php

ob_start();

echo 'test';

$out = ob_get_contents();

var_dump($out);

test is still echo'd. It's var_dump'd, as well, but I don't want it to be echo'd.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

Answer 1

The output buffer is automatically flushed at the end of the script, so it's expected behaviour.

You are looking for ob_get_clean(), which returns the current buffer before clearing it:

$out = ob_get_clean();