Why is this foreach loop iterating twice? - php

Question

Question's in the title really - I have this foreach loop and it appears to be iterating over my array twice.
ob_start();
$array = str_split(strtolower($_GET['text']));
foreach ($array as $char) {
error_log($_GET['text'] . ', ' . sizeof($array) . ', ' . $char);
}
$result = ob_get_contents();
I am finding the code above is producing the following log when passing in the URL like so: index.php?text=Hi
[22-Oct-2018 20:05:37 Europe/London] Hi, 2, h
[22-Oct-2018 20:05:37 Europe/London] Hi, 2, i
[22-Oct-2018 20:05:37 Europe/London] Hi, 2, h
[22-Oct-2018 20:05:37 Europe/London] Hi, 2, i
The debug shows the array to only be 2 long, so I'm really not sure what it could be. Thanks!
After more debugging, I have found the following:
if (!isset($_GET['text'])) {
header('HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found');
die();
}
echo uniqid() . '</br>';
//ob_start();
$total = 0;
$array = str_split(strtolower($_GET['text']));
foreach ($array as $char) {
echo $_GET['text'] . ', ' . sizeof($array) . ', ' . $char . '</br>';
}
//$result = ob_get_contents();
echo $result;
Produces this:
5bce311d3d6bd
Hi, 2, h
Hi, 2, i
But un-commenting the two commented out lines, gives me this:
5bce313b9f29d
Hi, 2, h
Hi, 2, i
Hi, 2, h
Hi, 2, i

Answer 1

I think I perhaps have more to learn about the ob_... functionality?
This following code seems to be consistent and reliable:
if (!isset($_GET['text'])) {
header('HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found');
die();
}
echo uniqid() . '</br>';
ob_start();
$total = 0;
$array = str_split(strtolower($_GET['text']));
foreach ($array as $char) {
echo $_GET['text'] . ', ' . sizeof($array) . ', ' . $char . '</br>';
}
ob_flush();