Include Speed

siefkencp

How much would a server be slowed down if all pages in the site used include statements by way of templateing? I can give you user stats, I'm just curious if its a move I want to make.

Chris

sneakyimp

not sure what you mean by 'templateing'??

i have seen projects that do something like this:

include('includes/app_start.php')

and inside app_start.php, you have maybe a dozen includes. included files range in size from a few bytes to 18K. server seems to respond OK, but this wasn't a high-traffic site really.

siefkencp

On my site i keep a lib of code that includes the header code in html and php and footer code. Essentially wrapping any thing i want to do in php in my template.

for example,

<?
include 'file/file/file/header.php';
include 'search.html';
include 'file/file/file/footer.php';
?>

Where header.php has the usual stuff plus the information that is the same on every page... as well as the footer...

The search actually just has things pertaining to that page, lets say a form in this case... un formated and the rest is handled when the page is called and php assembles it for the browser.

How much of a slow down would this create for a server?

Chris

sneakyimp

that sounds harmless to me...you're just sticking a header and footer on every page? that sounds like a very common practice.

as far as performance? i don't know. i know an ASP developer who said that including files over 5k caused a performance hit...i had noticed that he was defining the same contants in EVERY SINGLE FILE and that was his excuse. sounds totally stupid to me.

at any rate, if you're REALLY concerned about performance, do two versions of a page and use microtime() to see how long it takes each page to render. check microtime as the first line of code on your page and then check it again as the last line. write a function to compare the two values and either ECHO it or write to a log file or something.

more info on the function here:
http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.microtime.php