RE: [PHP] Re: PHP programming strategy; lots of little include files, or a few big ones?

> -----Original Message----- > From: Al [mailto:news@ridersite.org] > Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 2010 5:09 PM > To: php-general@lists.php.net > Subject: [PHP] Re: PHP programming strategy; lots of little > include files, or a few big ones? > > > > On 1/6/2010 7:18 PM, clancy_1@cybec.com.au wrote: > > 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? I think it's a case by case basis. Generally File I/O is expensive, but then again, as you say, having everything in a couple files is also sub-optimal for organizing and keeping things modular. I suggest you go with smaller files that are organized into logical 'chunks'. For example, functions that are used frequently are grouped into a common.inc.php rather than by topic (such as file/date/xml/forms/etc). And then use topical includes for the rest. More importantly, I suggest you get a good caching system like memecached or any of the others out there. Then you can pre-compile and load these files and the whole point becomes close to moot. ÐÆ5ÏÐ http://daevid.com "Some people, when confronted with a problem, think 'I know, I'll use XML.'" Now they have two problems.