I want to create a progress bar for a server-side task ( written in php ) 
For learning purposes the example and task would be very simplistic.
I would have a text field on the client page, read a number, pass it to the php script with ajax and make it calculate the sum of all numbers from 0 to number ( simplistic task that would take some time for big numbers, just to simulate some server-side work)
in the .html file I would create a timer that would call a function every n seconds getting the index that my for loop got to and update a progress bar.
My question is :
Is it possible to have in the same php file two functions , and how can I call a specific function with ajax  :  one that would block looping to number and another one I would call to get the current index the for-loop got to.
The code I have so far :
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <script>
        function myTimer()
        {
            var xmlhttp;
            if (window.XMLHttpRequest)
              {// code for IE7+, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari
              xmlhttp=new XMLHttpRequest();
              }
            else
              {// code for IE6, IE5
              xmlhttp=new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
              }
            xmlhttp.onreadystatechange=function()
              {
                  if (xmlhttp.readyState==4 && xmlhttp.status==200)
                    {
                        document.getElementById("percentageDiv").innerHTML=xmlhttp.response;
                        alert(xmlhttp.response);
                    }
              }
            xmlhttp.open("GET","getter.php",true);
            xmlhttp.send();
        }
        function loop(){
            var loop_index = document.getElementById("loop_nr").value;
            var xmlhttp;
            if (window.XMLHttpRequest)
              {// code for IE7+, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari
              xmlhttp=new XMLHttpRequest();
              }
            else
              {// code for IE6, IE5
              xmlhttp=new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
              }
            xmlhttp.onreadystatechange=function()
              {
                  if (xmlhttp.readyState==4 && xmlhttp.status==200)
                    {
                        document.getElementById("sumDiv").innerHTML="Total sum = " + xmlhttp.response;
                        clearInterval(myVar);
                    }
              }
            xmlhttp.open("GET","server_side.php?nr="+loop_index,true);
            xmlhttp.send();
            var myVar=setInterval(function(){myTimer()},1000);
        }
    </script>
</head>
<body>
<div id="percentageDiv"> Percentage div</div>
<div id="sumDiv"></div>
<input type="text" id="loop_nr">
<input type="submit" onclick="loop()">
</body>
</html>
server_side.php
<?php
    session_start();
    $index=$_GET["nr"];
    $progress = 0 ;
    $sum = 0 ;
    for ($i = 1; $i <= $index; $i++) {
        $sum = $sum + $i;
        $progress++;
        $_SESSION['progress'] = $progress;
    }
    echo $sum;
?>
getter.php
<?php
    session_start();
    $progress = $_SESSION['progress'];
    echo $progress;
?>
Thank You!
Your question would be two:
Your AJAX code is fine. The only thing you have to do in your PHP is receive this call.
Look at your request. You send a variable nr with your request:
server_side.php?nr="+loop_index
That will help us in the php code to determine that this is an AJAX call to do the sum operation. Now in the PHP:
<?php session_start();
//We look at the GET php variable to see if the "nr" is coming
if(isset($_GET['nr'])) {
    //Its coming!. Now we procede to call our function to sum
    sum($_GET['nr']);
}
function sum($nr) {
    $progress = 0 ;
    $sum = 0 ;
    for ($i = 1; $i <= $nr; $i++) {
       $sum = $sum + $i;
       $progress++;
       $_SESSION['progress'] = $progress;
    }
    echo $sum;
}
Thats it.
We need to make other AJAX call to request the progress to PHP.
First, we do another AJAX call to retrieve the progress with a timer!
    var timer;
    
    //try to delete duplications. Do a generic function that does the request to php
    function makeRequest(toPHP, callback) {
        var xmlhttp;
        if (window.XMLHttpRequest)
          {// code for IE7+, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari
          xmlhttp=new XMLHttpRequest();
          }
        else
          {// code for IE6, IE5
          xmlhttp=new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
          }
        xmlhttp.onreadystatechange=function()
          {
              if (xmlhttp.readyState==4 && xmlhttp.status==200)
                {
                    callback(xmlhttp.response);
                }
          }
        xmlhttp.open("GET",toPHP,true);
        xmlhttp.send();
     }
     function loop() {
         var loop_index = document.getElementById("loop_nr").value;
         makeRequest("server_side.php?nr="+loop_index, function(response) {
             document.getElementById("sumDiv").innerHTML="Total sum = " + response;
             clearInterval(timer);
         });
         timer=setInterval(makeRequest("getter.php", function(response) {
             document.getElementById("percentageDiv").innerHTML=response;
          }),1000);
     }
Then in the php side we retrieve this call as we did before and echo the $_SESSION['progress'] (as you already have)
<?php
    session_start();
    $progress = $_SESSION['progress'];
    echo $progress;
?>
And that's it!
Edit: Sessions must not be saved to a file (default PHP behaviour) because if you do that the "progress" AJAX will be blocked. You should store your sessions in a key-value database such as Redis to achieve parallelism and horizontal scalability.
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