CSS on PHP Pages

nfzgrld

I'm in the middle of converting my site to XHTML/CSS. What do you guys think is the best way to implement CSS in PHP? Use the "link ref" method, or just do a PHP include of the CSS file?

Nick

phpprogrammer

hai,
you can do in the following manner

mycss.php

your css code

usemycss.php
<?php
include("mycss.php");

your code

regards
bvsureshbabu

piersk

I'd use the link href method, personally. Means less work for the server.

nfzgrld

You know, I hadn't even thought of that, but you're right. It does mean less work for the server to use the link method. I guess that clinches it. Good thing that's what I've been doing.

Nick

yelvington

I do not automatically assume that it means less work for the server. It might, but it also might not.

But in any case, there is no reason to write HTML and CSS differently just because you're using PHP to produce it.

Weedpacket

Originally posted by yelvington
I do not automatically assume that it means less work for the server. It might, but it also might not.

I don't automatically assume either; I figure though (and experience backs me up) that a client smart enough to cache files would use a cached copy of a separate CSS file instead of downloading the stylesheet information repeatedly (whether as a separate file or embedded in the page) with every request it makes.

Barb54

Wow, I fell in love with CSS. I am still learning to use it but it's WAY better than coding every tag lol. I have tried including my css file and it didn't work. Maybe I didn't hold my mouth right, don't know. I put it in as a rel link with the page that holds my meta tags. Maybe I will try include again.

Barb

nfzgrld

Any kind of include, whether it's PHP or SSI, or anything else, does use up processor time on the server. Think about it, the page is being parsed on the fly by the parsing agent. Back in the day, when I first looked into CSS, when it was brand new, doing an SSI include was the general way of doing it. Now that I've finally come back to CSS, (Yes, I HAVE been under a rock of sorts), I thought I'd throw it out there and see what people where thinking on the subject before I spent a lot of time thinking about it. Now that I have thought about it, it is clear that doing a rel link is going to be preferable to an include in most situations I can think of. I must say though, getting up to speed with XHTML and CSS took a lot less time than I thought it would. It only took me two days to go from a clunky site with lots of tables and spacer gifs to an XHTML 1.0 Strict compliant site. I don't have all of the CSS implemented as clean as I'd like yet, but it is 100% compliant. It also looks much better.😃

Nick