Making the web has a couple of articles about how to make PHP scripts run faster and more efficiently. Checking the lists show I’m already doing quite a few of the items listed:
- Multiple arguments with echo (i.e. using “,” instead of “.”)
- I don’t currently do this, but it’s only 0.396% faster
- Reduce function calls (i.e. find out the size of an array before a loop, not in the “for statement”)
- I do do this, but not as much as I should – especially with a 54.095% difference!
- Avoid using variables if they aren’t needed and unset them once you’ve finished with them
- I try to do this, but there doesn’t appear (from the site) to be any speed penalties in not doing this.
- Use single quotes (instead of double quotes – ” )
- I’ve done this for ages as I knew PHP didn’t have to parse the string – but I didn’t know it was only a 0.696% speed difference.
- str_replace() vs ereg_replace() and preg_replace()
- I tend to use preg_replace instead of ereg_replace anyway, and I’m aware that using any sort of regular expressions is slow. Therefore I do try and use str_replace instead – after all, it’s a 59.224% saving in speed!