advantages?

SsirhC

I see a lot of webpages using www.somedomain.com/index.php?var=members over www.somedomain.com/members.php. What is the advantage to using ?var=members over the original link?

TheIceman5

index.php?var=members portability, good structure, easier to maintain, can be more secure, less coding required.

otherway- coder is n00b, takes lot more time to find errors as you have lots of redundant code most of the time, harder to maintain, less secure.

pyro

Originally posted by TheIceman5
otherway- coder is n00b

I disagree. Why would using static page names (easier for users to remember, better for search engine rankings in many search engines, if PHP includes are used, not necessarly more code, etc) make the coder a n00b?

TheIceman5

well not n00b, all depends on the site they are building. just a thing that came to mind when i was a n00b, i used to use seperate pages for eeverything till i learnt classes and stuff like that, now all y coding is lot less painful and lost more maintainable with stuff like index.php?action=go etc.....

pyro

I agree. For many things, it is very useful to do it as such. But, for others, it is not as good, and just had to take issue with your classifing it as the "n00b" way. 😉

Cheers.

SsirhC

I am fairly new to php. I am working on my first project ((http://clani69.digitalops.com/temp/chris/demos.php) don't bother clicking the links since they do not work; besides, this webpage is about one week out of date (fixed alot of things 😃))) and to make multiple pages, i just used index.php as a template and added things to it. What I'm wondering about index.php?stuff=asdlj is, could you just make what you want to add in a .txt and have it replace the old contents?

This sounds pretty stupid but stupid questions have to be asked sometimes 😛

TheIceman5

pretty simple, does similar to this.

<?
include($_POST['var'].".txt");
?>

if you goto indx.php?var=home

it will include home.txt in the page

if you goto index.php?var=there

it will include there.txt in the page.

Weedpacket

Or you just have
http://www.example.com/members.html
and have the server rewrite it as
http://www.example.com/members.php
or
http://www.example.com/index.php?var=members

Even more portability.

SsirhC

ahh...i got it...thanks for all the help. 😃

seby

Originally posted by TheIceman5
index.php?var=members portability, good structure, easier to maintain, can be more secure, less coding required.

otherway- coder is n00b, takes lot more time to find errors as you have lots of redundant code most of the time, harder to maintain, less secure.

its a matter of preference.

1) you still have to create a page for the ?var=page
unless you stuff all the code into a 600KB file.

its actually easier to maintain several files: members.php, index.php etc... instead of searching though one file for the buried code.

if i have an error on member.php i already know where the file is, and go straight to the code, rather than searching for the query string in the single index.php file..

it also really depends on how big one site is. its actually much harder to maintain a site if you have hundreds of pages and using ?var=page -- think about it.

for a small site with 10-20 pages using the query string method is ok... but you won't find an average to large website using this method.

AstroTeg

Originally posted by seby
its a matter of preference.

It is a matter of preference. I would lean towards a balance of both, using query string variables and seperate pages. For me, I try to group site activities into one PHP file and pass query strings around to persuade this one file to do different tricks. Example, if I need to user manager that allows users to: register as a new user, reset their lost password, handle login validation, change their user details. For activities like this, I tend to put them all into one file. If you use templates, then this one file can be copied to other sites. You'd know this file works and you shouldn't have to make too many changes to the PHP code itself. Sure, you'd have to update the templates since they'd contain the HTML code.

Plus its a matter of how you lay the file out and how organized you make it. If you have HTML mixed with PHP, its going to be much more difficult to manage a large file (and by having HTML mixed in, it makes the file even larger). If its strictly PHP, it tends to be a lot easier. Also if you follow a function naming convention, then that can help as well.

As mentioned, it boils down to personal preference. As you do more of this, you'll figure out what works best for you.

webdes03

Personally, I use includes in all of the websites I make. It makes it easier for clients with little or no coding background to maintain their own website. If you use an include you can include a file that is formatted just like a plain text file. So for a client to change their content is just like typing in notepad or a similar program.

I've found that inexperienced clients get very nervous around code, so when you use the non-include method, they tend to call you and e-mail you for help with changing a sentence.

I've done it both ways, but I've just sort of settled into doing it the "include" way.

Jedi_Legend

members.php could be a class file for the Members class. Then index.php?page=members could be a block of code that calls the methods in that class.