Many include files or just one?

[Xephon]

Was wondering if it was better to break the include file into many include files. Say I make a LARGE site (forums, portal, gallery, etc) and they are al integrated. Would it be better to make one large include file, or several small ones.

If I just do one large one, then the server will most likely cache it, otherwise it would have to constantly access the hd to get each include file, which would seemt o be slower. So by my logic one large file would seem to be faster since it owuld be cached. But I would like to know for sure before i start coding the site.

Thx in advance.

[Pig]

The speed difference is neglible. Use microtime() to test it if you really want.

[Weedpacket]

Don't forget also that PHP has to read and parse those include files - and if you're including a lot of functions that PHP never actually needs for the current page, then that's a lot of time parsing (and memory) that is being wasted.

Also, the OS ought to be caching (commonly|recently)-used files in memory (if such memory is available) so that source of overhead is reduced.

As ever: Your Results May Vary. Experiment.