How Much PHP & How Much HTML?

[StevenJ]

I read posts on this forum, primarily as an inspriation and tutorials (since my knowledege of PHP isn't that great) but I am intriuged by the use of PHP in many cases.

I code/write HTML in such a way that as little as possible is PHP. for example, assuming I have already got the variable set up, I would write:

<b>Welcome <?php echo $_SESSION['user_name'] ; ?> to the forums </b>

where as it seems by reading most post on here, a lot of people would write:

<?php echo "<b>Welcome " .  $_SESSION['user_name'] . " to the forums </b>" ; ?>

When I first started PHP, this is what I used to do, since that was the way it is taught in "WROX - Begining PHP4"

and when I am printing out tables that contain (suprise suprise) tabulated data, only the contents of the cell is done in php, for example:

<tr>
<td><?php echo $ID ; ?></td><td><?php echo $variable1 ; ?></td><td> <?php echo $variable2 ;?></td>
</tr>

Is this the best approach? or does this overload the server?

Is there any proof which method is best? or is it just a matter of personal choice?

My thinking was, the less processing the PHP engine had to do, the quicker the server could 'serve' the page.

I have recently started working more with SED & (N)AWK and I am wondering if there is a server overhead going from HTML -> PHP -> HTML -> PHP etc etc?

Steven

[planetsim]

If your going to do it like

<td><?php echo 1; ?></td>

You can shorten it more to this depending if the configuration supports it ofcourse

<td><?=1; ?></td>

There is very little difference in speed to be honest, from doing a quick little benchmark using PHP 5 the <?=1;?> method is faster than straight out, but its very insignificant unless you had high server loads or lots of them it would not make much of a difference.

I have recently started working more with SED & (N)AWK and I am wondering if there is a server overhead going from HTML -> PHP -> HTML -> PHP etc etc?

Also not sure if I am correct but from my understanding there shouldnt be any overhead, if a file has an extension set by the server to be parsed by the PHP Engine the entire file will be parsed regardless of if it is just HTML or HTML with PHP or PHP having HTML

[StevenJ]

thanks

planetsim wrote:

Also not sure if I am correct but from my understanding there shouldnt be any overhead, if a file has an extension set by the server to be parsed by the PHP Engine the entire file will be parsed regardless of if it is just HTML or HTML with PHP or PHP having HTML

doh! Never thought of it like that. I wasn't sure if the server passed to the PHP engine only for the PHP parts? that is something I can look into in my own time.

for anyone who's interested - I choose to output as little PHP as possible to seperate the design from the active content.

I am still interested in hearing other opinions.