This simple function outputs a string and closes the connection. It considers compression using "ob_gzhandler"

It took me a little while to put this all together, mostly because setting the encoding to none, as some people noted here, didn't work.

<?php
function outputStringAndCloseConnection2($stringToOutput)
{    
    set_time_limit(0);
    ignore_user_abort(true);    
    // buffer all upcoming output - make sure we care about compression:
    if(!ob_start("ob_gzhandler"))
        ob_start();         
    echo $stringToOutput;    
    // get the size of the output
    $size = ob_get_length();    
    // send headers to tell the browser to close the connection    
    header("Content-Length: $size");
    header('Connection: close');    
    // flush all output
    ob_end_flush();
    ob_flush();
    flush();    
    // close current session
    if (session_id()) session_write_close();
}
?>