Add "variable switch" and Ajax/socket output from script

I have a script (Joomla Library) that was developed by another developer for me. He is too busy to manage a couple of changes necessary. This script (library) process Real Estate listings from a Real Estate RETS server, converts the data from dqml to sql, then inserts in the mysql db. This is all working, but there are a couple of enhancements that are needed. 1) When open houses process runs, it is hard coded that it includes a "status accept" value. This is good and bad. Some providers require this value, others don't even offer it. The problem is that if it is a provider that doesn't even offer a status accept value, then the code crashes due to no status accept value in a comparison. In the companion Joomla component, I added a switch in the settings to tell the code to include the status accept, or skip it. The library needs to be updated to work with the switch, and process the data appropriately. i.e. if Include=1 then process as it currently does, but if 0, then exclude the status_accept. 2) The library currently doesn't do any output to screen (or cron email if set) until the script successfully completes. I would like to have the processing output dumped to screen or email in "real time". What is meant here is that it is doing the output as it is doing it. I had one person suggest Ajax output, then another suggest sockets, and that sockets would be less server load, which would be a big benefit.