Using Chunked Encoding for Reporting in Wordpress

Note: Before you use the TL;DR due be sure it's appropriate to do so, see here

The TL;DR;

add_action('template_redirect', 'add_chunked_encoding_for_reports_page_bc_load_speed');
function add_chunked_encoding_for_reports_page_bc_load_speed(){
    header("Transfer-encoding: chunked");    
}
...
flush(); //whenever you want to push a chunk out for sure

The Explanation

So, for work I've written a number of adminstrative pages for a client that involved some kind of reporting. Most of the time, the bulk of the computation could be done on the database side, which is where it should be (almost always). But because the lists sometimes would show large amounts of tabular data the page can take a while to load.

So, to make things appear to load a bit better, I decided to switch the transfer type to chunked instead of the default. Now, I was doing all this reporting only on the admin area, so I actually used the init hook and checked is_admin in my call to the action. In addition, I did not place the code into functions.php like many people do. But rather it is within my own plugin's page. So only when users go to the reports page is the action enabled and the content served up as chunked.

Note that this strategy, while WordPress specific, isn't neccesary limited to WordPress. But also with any sort of PHP page that loads large quantities of data and needs to do so in a chunked manner. Just be sure to call flush(); if you want to force out a chunk of output.

Also, note that some browsers (like chrome) buffer the first 256/512 bytes of output to do sniffing. So even if you chunk it, if there's not a lot of data you might see the page load time not speed up for the content you can see 'above the fold'