title: Continue processing after closing connection
body: <p>Is there a way in PHP to close the connection (essentially tell a browser than there's no more data to come) but continue processing.  The specific circumstance I'm thinking of is that I would want to serve up cached data, then if the cache had expired, I would still serve the cached data for a fast response, close the connection, but continue processing to regenerate and cache new data.  Essentially the only purpose is to make a site appear more responsive as there wouldn't be the occasional delay while a user waits for content to be regenerated.</p>
  
  <p>UPDATE:</p>
  
  <p>PLuS has the closest answer to what I was looking for.  To clarify for a couple of people I'm looking for something that enables the following steps:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>User requests page</li>
  <li>Connection opens to server</li>
  <li>PHP checks if cache has expired, if still fresh, serve cache and close connection (END HERE).  If expired, continue to 4.</li>
  <li>Serve expired cache</li>
  <li>Close connection so browser knows it's not waiting for more data.</li>
  <li>PHP regenerates fresh data and caches it.</li>
  <li>PHP shuts down.</li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>UPDATE:</p>
  
  <p>This is important, it must be a purely PHP solution.  Installing other software is not an option.</p>