How big is a big script?

Anon

I have written a php (3.0.12) script that is about 80K. I'm using Fast Templates, so all the HTML is in templates and the script just does processing. Would that be considered a large script?

I want to know how I can determine if I should break my script into smaller pieces. Can anyone point me to a resource that will tell me what exactly happens (memory, caching, processes) when a browser requests one of my php generated pages?

Thanks,
Staci

Anon

it depends on what script you are writing...

Anon

<rant>
The first problem is using FastTemplates - it's another layer of fat - here is how it works. C is programmed in Assembly (you don't get lower level unless you are programming in 1's and 0's), PHP is programmed in C (aka "a second generation language"), so anything programmed in PHP is thus a "third generation" language - thus being an unneeded extra layer of fat.

If you are using FastTemplates because you don't like / don't know how to program in HTML then you should probably not be programming in PHP ;o)
</rant>

Other than that I would say that it all depends on how well of a programmer you are. If you are good an 80K script could execute in no time with little resources - of course you could suck (not implying that you do - so don't flame me) and it would take hours to run 😮) (dame while(1)'s)

I have extremely bulky scripts (70-80k) that take only a split second to run - so I would say that 80k isn't horrible (just remember my previous comment about good coding practices)

Some things to remember when coding - compare ints to ints instead of strings to strings whenever possible, user ' instead of " whenever possible, stay away from ereg() functions (they are cool, and useful, but not aways needed), use switch() whenever you can, etc.

Just my $0.02

--Joe
http://www.miester.org

PS OPTIMIZE YOUR DB TABLES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anon

Thanks for your reply. The script consists mostly of functions that are called from a main switch. I have a few includes that call configuration options.

I'm using FastTemplates so that I can have HTML designers write HTML and I can write code. I have to say, that it is working quite nicely and I have seven (very individual looking) shopping carts running off the same script, the only difference being the template sets and a config file.

I haven't run into a problem with the script seeming slow, but the web sites that use it don't get a whole lot of traffic. I'd like to find out how I can determine what kind of memory it might use on the server if thousands of pages a day are being dynamically generated from one large script. I've tried to find info on this, but I'm not looking in the right place, I guess.

Thanks for your specific tips on things to watch our for. I'll review my code and update where possible.

Staci

Anon

Sorry for this - I just wann demonstrate the function of a forum

Anon

80k is nothing really, in terms of memory usage. It gets loaded once, then runs out of memory (cached) from then on. The real issue is how many CPU cycles it eats up. Best thing to do there is make a benchmark and see how many responses/second your program can make.