.php extension

[richie]

I have a relatively large site with about 500 code files.

I've gotten into the habit of naming all files with .php extension, even when there is no php code in it.

Is there a performance penalty for this?

I assume that apache surrenders processing to php engine only when it encounters the <?php or <? tag. In which case, it wouldn't matter if a file had .php or .html extension. Is this correct?

[devinemke]

any file that has the .php extension will be parsed by PHP looking for <?php...?> tags. if you do not have any PHP in a file then you should not use that extension so the parser does not need to look. so i guess the short answer to your quesuon is yes, there is performance penalty.

[richie]

So let's say in a file with .php extension I have no php code,

apache first passes it to php parser,
php looks for <? tags, finds none,
then returns processing back to apache.

In that case, the only delay is between the time apache surrenders processing, and the time it regains it. That time would be close to zero because php merely does a quick scan for <? opening tag.

I often use .php by default because I don't want to create a purely html file, then discover down the road that I need php coding in there. In which case one has to hunt down all references to that file and modify the links from .html to .php

From your answer, and my analysis, I would say the performance hit is negligible.

[maxpup979]

I did something similar on a very large site once...and the performance hit was minimal compared to the gain in efficiency of maintenance. Unless you are already peaking with load, I would say you should be fine.

[superwormy]

Indeed, the performance hit is there... but its very minimal. I wouldn't worry about it.