another, "Which is Faster," question

[Anon]

I cannot find the answer to this in books, so I turn to you folks, who have alot of experience. Here is my question, regarding a form page with a lot of data that needs to be submitted to the next page. Which is faster (more elegant/more efficient)?

...to use a "long" form action tag, or to use lots of hidden inputs? Examples:

//long action tag
<form method="post" action="nextpage.php?detail=<?php print $detail; ?>&anothervalue=<?php print $anothervalue; ?>?visitor=<?php print $visitor; ?>?anotherdetail=<?php print $anotherdetail; ?>">

<INPUT TYPE="SUBMIT">
</FORM>

or...

<form method="post" action="nextpage.php">
//hidden inputs
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="detail" VALUE="<?php print $detail; ?>">
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="anothervalue" VALUE="<?php print $anothervalue; ?>">
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="visitor" VALUE="<?php print $visitor; ?>">
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="anotherdetail" VALUE="<?php print $anothedetail; ?>">
</FORM>

[Anon]

Probably makes no difference worth worrying about (either way, the form data has to be read and parsed). The real problem is that URLs are limited in length (and you have to worry about urlencoding as well).

If you're passing a lot of session data from one page to another, what is faster is to use either session variables or a database, since neither involve having to shuffle all that data back and forth across half the planet.

Beyond that, experiment, since YRMV.

[mrmufin]

I'm partial to the second method, using hidden input elements. When using GET-appended URLS, you should be calling the urlencode() and url_decode() functions to assure that data isn't lost. More functions called, means more processing overhead.

Just my 2 cents...

[Anon]

If it is a lot of data that may be changed a few times, I would use sessions. I like to use them as a caching mechanism.

Using sessions is also safer if you have any security issues with the data. Using hidden fields or URL string for passing the variables means that they will be transmitted across the internet. Sessions keeps all of the data on the server.

[Anon]

Except with sessions, the visitor cannot hit the back button, and remain a happy person.