Include Speed

[tukon]

Hi.

Just a general speed question. How fast are includes? IE how much is my code slowing down if I have nested/multiple includes in my code?

This probably sounds cryptic. Oh well.

Thanks.

-Chris Reichow

[kparker]

Includes are, in general, pretty fast. Additionally, if you use include in multiple branches of your code, you may even end up with a speed up, due to reading/parsing less code than if it all was inline.

[Anon]

Be carefull about how many include files you use,
as loading an include file takes time. For small files, loading the file might actually take longer than parsing the file.

A small test on my machine here (2pIII SCSI, linux, with zend optimizer, and it's idling mostly) tells me it is on average 0.001 seconds faster to put 8kBytes of code in the script itself, than it is to include it.
Granted, that's not enough time to make a pot of tea, but if you get this extra delay a few times, it adds up...
Imagine if the filesystem is pretty busy, you might have to wait before you can read the include file.. eck!

So don't go overboard including files to gain speed.
Only do it when it helps you write better and more maintainable code.

[tukon]

Do you mean to say that PHP stores the included file in memory if it uses it often?

-Chris