note 35184 added to language.variables

Here's a simple way to speed up scripts considerably. I made a page that differs depending on a variable passed in the address. I found that if I checked the variable was blank several times the page took longer to create. Whereas if I set the variable to a default word, the speed jumped from 1.5 seconds to 0.5. (This matched the speed of the page when the variable was defined already by the address.) Example - the link might be any of these: test.php?a=page test.php?a=page&value=yellow test.php?a=page&value=red In the first link I left the variable off so the default page appears. I didn't want to add it to the link as it makes the address unnecessarily long. (The page is always accessed from the default link.) The code used was like this: if ($value == "") echo "<h1>Default page</h1>"; if ($value == "yellow") echo "<h1>Yellow page</h1>"; if ($value == "red") echo "<h1>Red page</h1>"; I used the variable $value several times in a set of small loops. To speed the page up, all I did was assign the variable at the top of the page like this instead of leaving it blank: if ($value == "") $value = "default"; Then I amended my code like this: if ($value == "default") echo "<h1>Default page</h1>"; if ($value == "yellow") echo "<h1>Yellow page</h1>"; if ($value == "red") echo "<h1>Red page</h1>"; I was amazed at the speed increase. ---- Manual Page -- http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.variables.php Edit Note -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php?action=edit+35184 Delete Note -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php?action=delete+35184&report=yes Reject Note -- http://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php?action=reject+35184&report=yes