WordPress: save output of do_action in variable

Question

I want to save the output of do_action in a variable to use it later. How could I save these output?

Answer 1

use ob_start() and ob_get_contents() and ob_end_clean() see example #1 on the following page in the PHP manual http://php.net/manual/en/function.ob-get-contents.php

It looks scary the first time, but it works well. Just make sure to always use ob_end_clean() for every time you use ob_start()

ob_start(); // start capturing output.
do_action('any_action_you_want');
$save_output_here = ob_get_contents(); // the actions output will now be stored in the variable as a string!
ob_end_clean(); // never forget this or you will keep capturing output.