This is a good strategy, but not one that gets at the core of the problem. Let's say my script isn't parsing hundreds of megabytes of flat text (that's out of my control unfortunately, or else I would put it in a db as Zaxo suggests). Maybe instead it's performing some huge computation or doing some massive en/decryption or waiting for a reply from another server somewhere. Is there a way to let the user see a message to the effect of "I'm working on it" and then see the result as soon as it's done? Or is this too dynamic? Is there no way to be free of reliance on cron or some other cleanup entity? Must I actually write out a file?