PHP scripts taking 10-15 minutes to load - optimizing my code to be faster

pruuugh

I've currently developed some classes in PHP to really simplify all my database calls (very similar to Ruby on Rails). Using the new classes, I have developed a centralized content management system to use with some of our clients.

Additionally, I use the htaccess Rewrite functionality to build out the site hiererarchy. So the script grabs the URL, sends it to a switch statement (much like the Rails controller) to determine what to do. Then the switch performs the queries like such:

$page = new page;
//will set $page->id, $page->title, etc for all fields in the table
$page->set_for($id);
//grabs children of the page from the database for display of navigation
$children = $page->find_all(array('where' => "parent='$id'"));

And as far as I know, the scripts have been coded properly, but are taking 10-15 minutes to load. Which is unacceptable, obviously! The database will usually reside on a separate server. Would this be a huge setback? Are there any tips I need to know when developing code such as this? I haven't really spent a lot of time trying to optimize speed, and have read a lot of the forum threads and have implemented some of the tips (trying to minimize queries, etc). Any questions, please let me know! PHP 5.1.2 on DreamHost with the client's database residing on EasyCGI.

Sooo frustrated and I don't know where to begin debugging this! Any help is appreciated beyond words!

dream_scape

You need to find out what part of the script is taking so long, and then you can find out why and fix it.

By far the easiest way to find out where the time is being consumed would be a profiler, but if you can't do that or aren't up for it, I would start by creating a page that was as basic as the application framework allows without throwing an error. Meaning no database call, no template engine usage, no anything really; just as basic as you can get within the framework. If it still takes really long to load, you know there is a fundamental problem somewhere in your core framework.

If it does load quickly as you'd expect, then slowly start building the page up and re-checking until you add something in that causes it to be really slow. And then you will have a much better idea of where to dig deeper to find the root cause.

If the problem is with the database, then there are some things you can do to pinpoint the exact query or issue. Things such as utilizing the MySQL slow query log, Analyzing your SQL queries to be sure you're using indexes efficiently, etc.