include() performance issues

[Anon]

I administer several sites and always have a
"variable.php" file that is included() in the site template that has varibales I want defined for every page of the site. For example, the "variable.php" file runs some code that checks every file in the directory, determines which was updated most recently, and uses that data to display "lasted updated on..." on the home page. Since this code is included() in the template it is being run in every page. Is this a real performance burden? Is the include_once() function more appropriate here?

[Anon]

The include_once() function is only really useful if you want to make sure a function is only included once each time a page is loaded. It sounds like your file is only being included once per page as is though.

The only way your could avoid having to run that script on every page load where the results are necessary, would be to cache the results somewhere every so often, and retrieve them from there instead.