Optimizing a While Loop

[jnuneznyc]

I have a while loop that goes thru a database record set and then takes the values and does a str_replace to fill them into a template.

Would it be faster to eval() or str_replace()?

If I preprocess the template to replace {FIRSTNAME} with <?=$row['FIRSTNAME']?> and then eval the template after each record is read from the db, will it be faster?

Also, other than seconds how can I measure performance in PHP?

Thanks,
JNunezNYC

[leetcrew]

this is what i did before... this code might help you...

$header = fopen ("./templates/" . def_template . "/overall_header.tpl", "r");
while (!feof($header)) { $var_header = $var_header . fgets($header, 4096); }
fclose ($header);
$var_header = preg_replace("{{tpl_title}}", def_title . " - powered by vProtector", $var_header);
$var_header = preg_replace("{{tpl_template}}", def_template, $var_header);
$var_header = preg_replace("{{tpl_alt_home}}", def_tpl_alt_home, $var_header);
$var_header = preg_replace("{{tpl_alt_register}}", def_tpl_alt_register, $var_header);
$var_header = preg_replace("{{tpl_alt_modify}}", def_tpl_alt_modify, $var_header);
$var_header = preg_replace("{{tpl_alt_faq}}", def_tpl_alt_faq, $var_header);
$var_header = preg_replace("{{tpl_description}}", def_tpl_description, $var_header);
$var_header = preg_replace("{{tpl_page1_link}}", def_tpl_page1_link, $var_header);
$var_header = preg_replace("{{tpl_page2_link}}", def_tpl_page2_link, $var_header);
$var_header = preg_replace("{{tpl_page3_link}}", def_tpl_page3_link, $var_header);
$var_header = preg_replace("{{tpl_page4_link}}", def_tpl_page4_link, $var_header);
$var_header = preg_replace("{{tpl_page5_link}}", def_tpl_page5_link, $var_header);
$var_header = preg_replace("{{tpl_page6_link}}", def_tpl_page6_link, $var_header);
$var_header = preg_replace("{{tpl_page7_link}}", def_tpl_page7_link, $var_header);
$var_header = preg_replace("{{tpl_page8_link}}", def_tpl_page8_link, $var_header);

[jnuneznyc]

I am already doing a str_replace which is faster than using Regular Expression. I was just wondering if it was faster to create a Pre-Processed version of my template and add php code to insert the variable where the design placed the {...} tags. I found out the one of the PHP Template system (smarty I think) uses this but allows for if..then statements as well.