Zend Optimizer Not So Optimal For Me

[rolando]

Hola.

I posted this at Zend.com, but their forums seem pretty quiet...

I have installed the Zend Optimizer with PHP 4.1.1 (soon to become 4.1.2.) After installing it, I ran benchmarks with our most demanding page and found the default Optimizer settings actually added about .7 seconds to the already high (3.5 - 4.2 seconds) execution time. Messing with the pass settings reduced the amount of slowdown -- but in the end, the Optimizer still added a significant increase in execution time.

Is there something I should know that I don't already? There is no documentation (that I can find) as to what each pass does, so my attempts at messing with them were purely unsuccessful shots in the dark.

The script in question does a large amount of text parsing using preg_match() and str_replace() and holds open files between 300-800 lines in length. It also holds what can be a relatively large set of result data from the database in memory during execution.

Thanks for your comments!

-Roy Huggins

[Anon]

Hi!

I think you should consider caching to files, for instance cache the file for an hour. The first user will have a delay of 3-4 seconds as you indicated, but if he comes back to the page or another user hits this page within some time limit, he will see it displayed instantly.

This is of course good when a file is queried with up to a thousand of query string combinations, because for different query strings to the same file a different cache file will need to be generated.

The Zend Optimizer optimizes long files. It is probably not so "optimizing" for php scripts that implement strenous data parsing techniques - it only optimizes code.
However, I suggest you try to upload one of your scripts to a different server with Zend Optimizer (and the same hardware :-) ) and compare execution time.
Or try a long script with less data parsing methods with and without Zend Optimizer. This will give you a fair estimate.

Hope this helps,
Stas

[rolando]

Yes, caching is in the works. 🙂 I took over legacy code from a previous programmer and am trying to find simple ways to reduce the load on the server while I work on a more elegant solution. Your comment about what the optimizer does is quite helpful. Thanks much!

-Roy