Question about code efficiency...

versatilewt

In a page where I'm echoing a lot of variables from a mySQL database, is it typically quicker to echo all text (including basic html tables, etc) in one <? php ?> call, or should I echo each variable individually? I'm not sure which is more efficient...calling the interpreter multiple times and doing a little parsing each time or having it do a lot of parsing once

mrhappiness

you mean having several <?php ?> blocks?

this would be a bad idea i think

versatilewt

yes.. for example

<?php 
echo"  <tr><td><strong>Phone:</strong></td><td width=150><input type=text value='$Row[ret_cust_phone]' name=ret_cust_phone></td> \n";

echo"    <td width=90><strong>Phone 2:</strong></td><td ><input type=text value='$Row[ret_cust_phone2]' name=ret_cust_phone2></td></tr> \n";
?>

<tr>
      <td><strong>Phone:</strong></td><td width=150><input type=text value='<?php echo"  $Row[ret_cust_phone]"; ?>' name=ret_cust_phone></td> 
     <td width=90><strong>Phone 2:</strong></td><td ><input type=text value='<?php echo"  $Row[ret_cust_phone]"; ?>'  name=ret_cust_phone2></td>
</tr>

mrhappiness

several y?php ?> blocks means switching loading php, unloading php, loading php, unloading php, ...

that is imho slower than haveing all the stuff in one big <?php ?> block

versatilewt

that was my thought too. thanks.

LordShryku

Echoing out html through php is bad for two reasons:
1) You're using php where you don't need to. This is slower.
2) You lose HTML formatting. Selecting to view the source of your document in your browser, you'll see everything jumbled together. Though this isn't important, it'll help your debugging.

mrhappiness

ad #2: that's right, because of this i have my template engine... 🙂

ad #1: but if you need php it's slower to switch between php and html every two lines than using php only...

dnast

I'll have to agree with LordShryku.

The "switching" is not a problem. PHP virtually only "looks" at code inside <?php tags. It's not like a car that changes gears everytime you escape and unescape 🙂

Also, it would be a pain to edit a whole bunch of echo's, but maybe that's me.

Here's a good quote: 😉

"for outputting large blocks of text, dropping out of PHP parsing mode is generally more efficient than sending all of the text through echo() or print() or somesuch."