PHP programming strategy; lots of little include files, or a few big ones?
| From: | clancy_1 at cybec dot com dot au | Date: | Thu, 07 Jan 2010 00:18:40 +0000 |
| Subject: | PHP programming strategy; lots of little include files, or a few big ones? | ||
| Groups: | php.general | ||
| Request: | Send a blank email to php-general+get-300857@lists.php.net to get a copy of this message | ||
I have a flexible program, which can do many different things according to the type of
data it is fed. Ideally the flexibility is achieved by calling different functions,
though when the functionality is ill-defined I sometimes just include blocks of code.
Ideally, from the point of program maintenance, each module should not be too long --
preferably just a page or so. This doesn't raise problems in a compiled language, but in
an interpreted language like PHP the programmer must decide whether to lump a whole lot of
functions into a single large include file, or to include lots of little files as the
particular functions are needed.
The first case can lead to memory bloat, as there are likely to be a lot of unused
functions in memory on any given pass, whereas the second case may require lots of little
files to be loaded.
Are there likely to be significant performance costs for either approach, and what are
your feelings about the relative virtues of the two approaches?