number of include()s

IF I make a PHP script that uses varoius external function from include()ed files, does it make a significant difference how many includes() are used for these functions.

I would rather keep things separate for management of code, but I have heard that lots of include()s reduces performance. How significant is the performance change?

Unless you have thousands includes, I don't think you will notice any difference. Anyway, try to find a balance.

Thats what I thought. I didn't see why there would be much difference as the files are just plain text files but thought it would be best to ask before I jump in. It's gonna be about 4-5 includes I think.

Thanks for the help leo

Since the server will open and read a new file for each include in the PHP, there is a little overhead. But it is just nothing. You are talking about 5 includes, don't worry about the overhead. I guess, for a good webserver you can use 30 includes without any problems.

I tried to measure the overhead once, I was building a site with more than 20 includes for each user hit. I used timers to see the build time of the file with includes against a single file (no includes). I don't remember any results of the tests, but I used includes in the site

well duh!!! Right, well that will be the solution to a different question I know I'm gonna have in a a week or two. Why don't I ever think of the easy way of doing stuff

hehehe

The way I usually do it is have an include.php file listing all the includes I need.

Some times the files get pretty hair raising interms of the number of include but I have never noticed any perfomance drops.

Another way to reduce the number of includes is to write code you can re-use across the entrie site ie:
instead of having an html page as the header and an html page as the footer write two funstions in one page that generate the header and footer code then echo the two results etc

I am an ASP coder but its all the same thing... Includes have little effect on performance but you should keep to a small number just to manage it all eg: you page linked to page wrapper that links to header include, footer include and a global variable and db connection include.

I think people are confusing this with inline tags. ASP tag, <% …. %> and PHP is <%PHP …. %>, This approach is by far the easiest to implement at first and it leaves the HTML portions of the page in an easy to read and maintainable format…but its bad coding.

Fastest is to use a Response.Write without CRLFs but your view source will give you unformated HTML but this is better becuase there is less data to transfer ... checkout http://www.futuremovies.co.uk and view source. I use a variables to output into about 5 Response.Write 's . Don’t forget meta tags will need CRLFs for Inktomi to read them but this may not be the case nowdays.

A guide to enhancing ASP Part 1

aspemporium.com - Increasing the Execution Speed of Your ASP Programs

Dude, the source code for that page is <b>huge</b>
You have saved 50% by formatting it all on to one line but 16k for what exactly? The page started off at 30Kb when i reformatted with whitespace. 30kb is what I aim for with all the graphics and external files included! You have 4-5kb of actual readable text and so that leaves 12Kb just for the layout.

You would do better to sort out your html, cut out all the crap (nested tables and spacer gifs etc) and get the page <i>layout</i> down to about 5-10kB with the whitespace still left in, then remove the whitespace if you are feeling really fanatical about size.

Sorry if that seems a bit harsh but on my pages that technique will save about 2kB most, so I shall not be worrying to much about it.


Rabid dog, do you meaqn you have a kind of nested include, like each page includes include.php and then include.php has:


I wasn't too sure on that one.

I already started using a single php file for the head, footer and nav generation, but thanks for the tip.

harsh yeah ... we are talking about Server side coding not my rushed HTML with little .css support. Nested tables are quicker to code sometimes when your site moves dynamically depending on what you set up in the user admin. Its not ideal but I thought it was worth the hit just to get the job done.

Hmm, I still would have gone for divs's with clear:both and floated images for most of your site. Chuck in a couple of margins and you're done. You did say that it was good because the amount of data transfered was smaller....

To be fair I as already thinking along the lines of having the whole page in a couple of variables and then outputting at the end. Strikes me as being more mangeable in the code as well.

I never had the knowledge to use DIVs to that level or the time to learn. If it was a simple design then yes but I see it as far too complex of a task and not worth the effort.

Anyway back on topic…




yeah I use "out" as the variable in the page function pageData() and server include the bellow "wrapper"



In the pageData() I use out = bla bla.. instead of Response.Write.

ahhh I see you don’t understand yet what I meant but you will do when you start coding using only 3 or 4 InLine tags. When you code In line less you don’t get character returns you have to add them in manually 20% more processor intensive in ASP. Instead you leave character returns out and get 10% speed increase (as well as making the HTML a tiny bit smaller to download). Its the same in PHP.

ahhhh I do see where you are coming from now, it was this line that got me confused:

rtm223 that would be correct! I just find I get less file not found errors. and it is easier to maintain.