PHP: Hackers Paradise
by Nathan Wallace
1 Introduction
PHP (http://www.php.net)
is a powerful server side web scripting solution. It has quickly grown in
popularity and according to the 1999 January Netcraft Web Server Survey
PHP is installed on 12.8% of all web sites.
Much of its syntax is borrowed from C, Java and Perl with a couple of
unique PHP-specific features thrown in. The goal of the language is to allow
web developers to write dynamically generated pages quickly.
Being a good PHP hacker isn’t just about writing single line
solutions to complex problems. For
example, web gurus know that speed of coding is much more important than speed
of code. In this article we’ll look at
techniques that can help you become a better PHP hacker. We’ll assume that you have a basic knowledge
of PHP and databases.
If nothing else, you should leave here with the 3 key ideals
for PHP hackers:
·
Laziness is a Virtue
·
Chameleon Coding
·
Speed of Coding, Not Speed of Code
2 Laziness is a Virtue
2.1.1 Introduction
It seems strange to think of a web programmer as lazy. Most of us work one hundred-hour week’s in
our quest to join the gold rush. In
fact, we need to be lazy because we are so busy.
There are two key ways to be lazy. Firstly always use existing code when it is
available, just integrate it into your standards and project. The second technique is to develop a library
of helpful functions that let you be lazy in the future.
2.1.2 Use Other People’s Code
We need to use laziness to our advantage and PHP is the
perfect tool. PHP was born and raised in
an open source environment. The
community holds open source ideals close to its heart. As a result there are thousands of people on
the mailing list willing to share their knowledge and code. There are also many open source PHP projects
that you can tap into.
I’m not suggesting that you spend all day asking people to
write code for you. But through clever
use of the knowledge base, mailing list archives and PHP projects you can save
yourself a lot of time.
PHP Knowledge Base – http://php.faqts.com
PHP Mailing List Archive - http://www.progressive-comp.com/Lists/?l=php3-general&r=1&w=2
2.1.3 Helpful Functions and Classes
2.1.3.1 Introduction
In this section we will work at developing a library of PHP
code which will aid us in future development.
A small amount of work now let’s us be lazy in the future.
Some of this code has been taken from open source PHP
projects. Other parts from the mailing
list archives. In fact, all the work I
really needed to do was structure the code into a coherent library of
functions.
2.1.3.2 Database Abstraction
One of the features / problems with PHP is that it does not
have a uniform method for accessing databases.
There are specialized functions for each database PHP is able to connect
to. This is a feature because it allows
you to optimize your database code. It
is a problem because it makes your code less portable and increases the
learning curve for newcomers.
A number of database wrapper classes have been developed to
solve this problem. They provide a
uniform set of functions for accessing any database. Personally I like them because I find it much
easier to remember a few simple functions like query and next_record than
having to think about database handles, connections and so on.
The most commonly used (and defacto standard) is PHPLib - http://phplib.netuse.de/
There is also PHPDB - http://phpdb.linuxbox.com/
2.1.3.3Session Management
The main purpose of PHPLib is session management. This allows you to associate data with
visitors to your site for the duration of their stay. This can be useful for remembering options
and so on.
PHP4 has session management features built into the PHP internal
function library.
2.1.3.4 Debugging Variables
There is limited debugging support for PHP. This is no
Smalltalk environment where you can browse objects and perform methods on them.
Instead we need to make creative use of the old, reliable echo statement.
The first thing we need to be able to do is look at the
value of variables. The loose typing of PHP lets us use most variables directly
in strings. This is great for numbers and so on, but falls down when we are
dealing with arrays and objects.
The other problem with debugging is that sometimes I'm not
even sure what a variable is likely to contain. If I was, there be no need to
debug.
So, lets be smart now and lazy for the rest of time. We can
write a function that shows us the type and value of any variable.
function
ss_array_as_string (&$array, $column = 0) {
$str = "Array(<BR>\n";
while(list($var, $val) = each($array)){
for ($i = 0; $i < $column+1; $i++){
$str .=
" ";
}
$str .= $var.' ==> ';
$str .= ss_as_string($val,
$column+1)."<BR>\n";
}
for ($i = 0; $i < $column; $i++){
$str .=
" ";
}
return $str.')';
}
function
ss_object_as_string (&$object, $column = 0) {
if (empty($object->classname)) {
return "$object";
}
else {
$str =
$object->classname."(<BR>\n";
while (list(,$var) =
each($object->persistent_slots)) {
for ($i = 0; $i < $column;
$i++){
$str .=
" ";
}
global $$var;
$str .= $var.' ==> ';
$str .= ss_as_string($$var,
column+1)."<BR>\n";
}
for ($i = 0; $i < $column; $i++){
$str .=
" ";
}
return $str.')';
}
}
function
ss_as_string (&$thing, $column = 0) {
if (is_object($thing)) {
return ss_object_as_string($thing,
$column);
}
elseif (is_array($thing)) {
return ss_array_as_string($thing,
$column);
}
elseif (is_double($thing)) {
return
"Double(".$thing.")";
}
elseif (is_long($thing)) {
return
"Long(".$thing.")";
}
elseif (is_string($thing)) {
return "String(".$thing.")";
}
else {
return
"Unknown(".$thing.")";
}
}
Note that these functions work together to correctly print,
format and indent arrays. They are also able to print objects when they have
been defined with the PHPLIB standard variables classname (the name of the
class) and persistent_slots (an array of the variable names we care about).
Now we can see the state of any variable by just doing:
echo
ss_as_string($my_variable);
We can see the value of all variables currently defined in
the PHP namespace with:
echo
ss_as_string($GLOBALS);
2.1.3.5 Log Functions
A great way to debug is through logging. It’s even easier if you can leave the log
messages through your code and turn them on and off with a single command. To facilitate this we will create a number of
logging functions.
$ss_log_level
= 0;
$ss_log_filename
= '/tmp/ss-log';
$ss_log_levels
= array(
NONE
=> 0,
ERROR => 1,
INFO
=> 2,
DEBUG => 3);
function
ss_log_set_level ($level = ERROR) {
global $ss_log_level;
$ss_log_level = $level;
}
function
ss_log ($level, $message) {
global $ss_log_level, $ss_log_filename;
if ($ss_log_levels[$ss_log_level] <
$ss_log_levels[$level]) {
// no logging to be done
return false;
}
$fd = fopen($ss_log_filename,
"a+");
fputs($fd, $level.' -
['.ss_timestamp_pretty().'] - '.$message."\n");
fclose($fd);
return true;
}
function
ss_log_reset () {
global $ss_log_filename;
@unlink($ss_log_filename);
}
There are 4 logging levels available. Log messages will only be displayed if they
are at a level less verbose than that currently set. So, we can turn on logging with the following
command:
ss_log_set_level(INFO);
Now any log messages from the levels ERROR or INFO will be
recorded. DEBUG messages will be
ignored. We can have as many log entries
as we like. They take the form:
ss_log(ERROR,
"testing level ERROR");
ss_log(INFO,
"testing level INFO");
ss_log(DEBUG,
"testing level DEBUG");
This will add the following entries to the log:
ERROR
– [Feb 10, 2000 20:58:17] – testing level ERROR
INFO
– [Feb 10, 2000 20:58:17] – testing level INFO
You can empty the log at any time with:
ss_log_reset();
2.1.3.6 Optimization
We need a way to test the execution speed of our code before
we can easily perform optimizations. A
set of timing functions that utilize microtime() is the easiest method:
function
ss_timing_start ($name = ‘default’) {
global $ss_timing_start_times;
$ss_timing_start_times[$name] = explode('
', microtime());
}
function
ss_timing_stop ($name = ‘default’) {
global $ss_timing_stop_times;
$ss_timing_stop_times[$name] = explode(' ',
microtime());
}
function
ss_timing_current ($name = ‘default’) {
global $ss_timing_start_times,
$ss_timing_stop_times;
if (!isset($ss_timing_start_times[$name]))
{
return 0;
}
if (!isset($ss_timing_stop_times[$name])) {
$stop_time = explode(' ', microtime());
}
else {
$stop_time =
$ss_timing_stop_times[$name];
}
// do the big numbers first so the small
ones aren’t lost
$current = $stop_time[1] –
$ss_timing_start_times[$name][1];
$current += $stop_time[0] –
$ss_timing_start_times[$name][0];
return $current;
}
Now we can check the execution time of any code very
easily. We can even run a number of
execution time checks simultaneously because we have established named timers.
See the optimizations section below for the examination of
echo versus inline coding for an example of the use of these functions.
2.1.3.7 Debugging and Optimizing Database Operations
The best way to gauge the stress you are placing on the
database with your pages is through observation. We will combine the logging and timing code
above to assist us in this process.
We will alter the query() function in PHPLib, adding
debugging and optimizing capabilities that we can enable and disable easily.
function
query($Query_String, $halt_on_error = 1) {
$this->connect();
ss_timing_start();
$this->Query_ID =
@mysql_query($Query_String,$this->Link_ID);
ss_timing_stop();
ss_log(INFO, ss_timing_current().’ Secs –
‘.$Query_String);
$this->Row = 0;
$this->Errno = mysql_errno();
$this->Error = mysql_error();
if ($halt_on_error &&
!$this->Query_ID) {
$this->halt("Invalid SQL:
".$Query_String);
}
return $this->Query_ID;
}
3 Chameleon Coding
3.1.1 Introduction
A chameleon is a lizard that is well known for its ability
to change skin color. This is a useful
metaphor for web programming as it highlights the importance of separating well
structured and stable backend code from the dynamic web pages it supports.
PHP is the perfect language for chameleon coding as it
supports both structured classes and simple web scripting.
3.1.2 Structuring your PHP Code
3.1.2.1 Introduction
When writing PHP code we need to make a clear distinction
between the code which does the principal work of the application and the code
which is used to display that work to the user.
The backend code does the difficult tasks like talking to
the database, logging, and performing calculations.
The pages that display the interface to these operations are
part of the front end.
3.1.2.2 Dynamic, Hackable Frontend Code
Mixing programming code in with HTML is messy. We can talk about ways to format the code or
structure your pages, but the end result will still be quite complicated.
We need to move as much of the code away from the HTML as
possible. But, we need to do this so
that we don’t get lost in the interaction between our application and the user
interface.
A web site is a dynamic target. It is continually evolving, improving and
changing. We need to keep our HTML pages
simple so that these changes can be made quickly and easily. The best way to do that is by making all
calls to PHP code simple and their results obvious.
We shouldn’t worry too much about the structure of the PHP
code contained in the front end, it will change soon anyway.
That means that we need to remove all structured code from
the actual pages into the supporting include files. All common operations should be encapsulated
into functions contained in the backend.
3.1.2.3 Stable, Structured Backend Code
In complete contrast to the web pages your backend code
should be well designed, documented and structured. All the time you invest here is well spent,
next time you need a page quickly hacked together all the hard parts will be
already done waiting for you in backend functions.
Your backend code should be arranged into a set of include
files. These should be either included
dynamically when required, or automatically included in all pages through the
use of the php3_auto_prepend_file directive.
If you need to include HTML in your backend code it should
be as generic as possible. All
presentation and layout should really be contained in the front end code. Exceptions to this rule are obvious when they
arise, for example, the creation of select boxes for a date selection form.
PHP is flexible enough to let you design your code using
classes and or functions. My object
oriented background means that I like to create a class to represent each facet
of the application. All database queries
are encapsulated in these classes, hidden from the front end pages
completely. This helps by keeping all
database code in a single location and simplifying the PHP code contained in
pages.
3.1.3 Coding Techniques
3.1.3.1 Include Files
If we are building these function libraries we need to work
out a scheme for including them in our pages.
There are a couple of different approaches to this.
We can either include all our library files all the time, or
include them conditionally as required.
As part of my speed of coding philosophy I prefer to just
include all the files and never think about it again. When the Zend optimizing engine becomes
available to pre-parse this code the performance hit will not be significant.
I have about 10,000 lines of code in PHP libraries for my
site. A quick check using the timing
functions will tell us the damage:
<?php
require(‘timing.inc’);
ss_timing_start();
//
include other library files here
ss_timing_stop();
echo
‘<h1>’.ss_timing_current().’</h1>’;
?>
It seems to take about 0.6 seconds to parse all my function
libraries. My sites do not receive
millions of hits so this penalty is not important enough to worry about yet.
One drawback of including all libraries all the time is that
it makes it difficult to work on them.
One mistake in any of those files will bring down every page on the
entire site. Be very, very careful.
If you are not as lazy as me then perhaps you’d prefer the
conditional include technique. It’s
simple to use and implement. Just
structure all of your library files like the example below:
<?php // liba.inc
if ( defined( '__LIBA_INC' ) ) return;
define( '__LIBA_INC', 1 );
/*
* Library code
here.
*/
?>
Then you just need to include this library in any script
where it is used. Libraries may also
need to include other libraries. Your
include statements look the same as normal:
include(‘liba.inc’);
This way, the calling scripts don't have to do any of the
work. Unfortunately return won't work
from require()d files in PHP4 anymore. So, you will need to use include()
instead. You can still use require() in
PHP3.
3.1.3.2 Design Patterns for Web Programming
Some of the best web programming techniques are captured in
the Web Programming Design Patterns.
They are high level descriptions of the best solutions to common web
programming problems. You can read more
about these here:
http://www.e-gineer.com/articles/design-patterns-in-web-programming.phtml
4 Speed of Coding, Not Speed of Code
4.1.1 Introduction
The hardest thing for me to learn as a web programmer was to
change the way I wrote code. Coming from
a product development and university background the emphasis is on doing it the
right way. Products have to be as close
to perfect as possible before release.
School assignments need to be perfect.
The web is different.
Here it is more important to finish a project as soon as possible than
it is to get it perfect first time. Web sites are evolutionary, there is no
freeze date after which it is difficult to make changes.
I like to think of my web sites as prototypes. Everyday they get a little closer to being
finished. I can throw together 3 pages in
the time it would take to do one perfectly.
It’s usually better on the web to release all three and then decide
where your priorities lie. Speed is all
important.
So, everything you do as a programmer should be focused on
the speed at which you are producing code (pages).
4.1.2 Optimizations to Satisfy Your Hacker Instinct
4.1.2.1 Introduction
This section describes some tricks you can use to speed up
your PHP code. Most of them make very
little difference when compared to the time taken for parsing, database queries
and sending data down a modem.
They are useful to know both so you can feel you are
optimizing your code and to aid your understanding of certain PHP concepts.
4.1.2.2 Use Inline Tags Instead of echo
The PHP interpreter gets invoked once for each page. Whatever is not contained in PHP tags like
<? ?> is just echoed back out by the interpreter.
As a result it is faster to use lots of little in-line tags
than it is to build massive strings or use echo statements.
Let’s use the timing functions we developed above to run a
quick test.
<h2>Test
Inline Tags vs echo</h2>
<p>
<?php
ss_timing_start('echo'); ?>
<?php
for
($i=0; $i<1000; $i++) {
echo $i."<br>";
}
?>
<?php
ss_timing_stop('echo'); ?>
<p>
<?php
ss_timing_start(str); ?>
<?php
$str
= '';
for
($i=0; $i<1000; $i++) {
$str .= $i."<br>";
}
echo
$str;
?>
<?php
ss_timing_stop(str); ?>
<p>
<?php
ss_timing_start(inline); ?>
<?php
for
($i=0; $i<1000; $i++) {
?>
123<br>
<?php
}
?>
<?php
ss_timing_stop(inline); ?>
<p>
<br>
<h2>Results</h2>
echo
- <?php echo ss_timing_current('echo') ?>
<p>
str
- <?php echo ss_timing_current(str) ?>
<p>
inline
- <?php echo ss_timing_current(inline) ?>
The results of this test averaged out to be:
echo - 0.063347 secs
str - 0.083996 secs
inline
- 0.035276 secs
We can see that inline is clearly the fastest
technique. But, when we consider that we
only save 0.03 milliseconds each time we use it, the method you use to echo
your values is pretty much irrelevant. A moral victory at best…
4.1.2.3 str_replace vs ereg_replace
It’s predictable that the simple str_replace() will be
significantly faster than ereg_replace.
A quick test also reveals the time difference when we introduce a simple
pattern match into the ereg_replace.
<h2>Test
str_replace vs ereg</h2>
<p>
<?php
$string = 'Testing with <i>emphasis</i>'; ?>
<?php
ss_timing_start('str_replace'); ?>
<?php
for
($i=0; $i<1000; $i++) {
str_replace('i>', 'b>',
$string).'<br>';
}
?>
<?php
ss_timing_stop('str_replace'); ?>
<p>
<?php
ss_timing_start(ereg); ?>
<?php
for
($i=0; $i<1000; $i++) {
ereg_replace('i>', 'b>',
$string).'<br>';
}
?>
<?php
ss_timing_stop(ereg); ?>
<p>
<?php
ss_timing_start(ereg_pattern); ?>
<?php
for
($i=0; $i<1000; $i++) {
ereg_replace('<([/]*)i>',
'<\1b>', $string).'<br>';
}
?>
<?php
ss_timing_stop(ereg_pattern); ?>
<p>
<br>
<h2>Results</h2>
str_replace
- <?php echo ss_timing_current(str_replace) ?>
<p>
ereg
- <?php echo ss_timing_current(ereg) ?>
<p>
ereg_pattern
- <?php echo ss_timing_current(ereg_pattern) ?>
Here are the results.
Notice how using the simple pattern in ereg_replace has almost doubled
the execution time.
str_replace
- 0.089757
ereg
- 0.149406
ereg_pattern
- 0.248881
Again,
the difference of these functions relative to one another is noticable but in
the context of returning a web page basically irrelevant.
4.1.2.4 Quoted Strings
PHP parses double quoted strings to look for variables. Any variable contained in a double quoted
string will be resolved and inserted into the string at that location.
Single quoted strings are printed exactly as they
appear. They are not parsed.
So, you should use single quoted strings where possible to
reduce the work to be done by the parser.
4.1.3 Optimizations that Really Make a Difference
4.1.3.1 Reduce queries
Accessing the database is expensive. Persistent connections reduce a lot of the
overhead by removing the need to connect with each request, but performing
queries is still a high cost exercise compared with the execution of PHP code.
This is particularly true due to locking issues in the
database. In testing you might see that
individual queries to the database are actually quite fast. In production you will see the database get
overloaded with many small queries as it struggles to satisfy a single large
query.
4.1.3.2 Optimize your Queries
The type of queries you make to the database will have a
dramatic effect on the speed of your application. Making smart use of column indexes is
essential. Small changes to your SQL can
result in dramatic time savings.
4.1.3.3 Avoid joins
Joins are expensive.
The minute you do a join the size of the resulting table becomes the
multiple of the tables being joined.
Lets look at some quick statistics to give you a feel for
the cost of joins. I have created two tables,
foo and big_foo. Foo contains a single
column with the numbers 1-1000. Big_foo
contains a single column with the numbers 1-1,000,000. So, big_foo is equivalent in size to the join
of foo with itself.
$db->query(“select
* from foo”);
0.032273
secs
$db->next_record();
0.00048999999999999
secs
$db->query(“insert
into foo values (NULL)”);
0.019506
secs
$db->query(“select
* from foo as a, foo as b”);
17.280596
secs
$db->query(“select
* from foo as a, foo as b where a.id > b.id”);
14.645251
secs
$db->query(“select
* from foo as a, foo as b where a.id = b.id”);
0.041269
secs
$db->query(“select
* from big_foo”);
25.393672
secs
We can see from the results above that selecting all rows
from the join of a 1000 row table is only marginally quicker than selecting all
rows from a 1,000,000 row table.
It is worth noting that a join that returns a small number
of rows is still very fast.
4.1.3.4 Make your pages smaller
Let’s consider a typical user on a 56Kbps modem. On a good connection, they can download pages
at approximately 6kBps. We were looking
at optimizations above that save approximately 0.15 seconds on an extremely
complex page. Reducing the size of your
page by about 900 bytes will give you an equivalent saving.
Usually response times for the user are gained most easily
through examination of your HTML and optimizing the use of images.
4.1.4 Gotchas
4.1.4.1 Introduction
This section will be quite small since most PHP developers
are now making the switch to PHP4. The
parsing engine has been completely rewritten and has removed a lot of the
annoying quirks that can bring a lot of grief to both newcomers and experienced
PHP programmers.
4.1.4.2 Arrays of Objects
PHP3 does not handle arrays of objects very well. The following code will NOT parse correctly:
$a[$i]->foo();
PHP does not like the object reference after the array index
brackets. Instead you need to use a
temporary variable:
$tmp
= $a[$i];
$tmp->foo();
4.1.4.3 Calling overridden methods
PHP3 has support for classes and inheritence. You can even override functions in
subclasses. Problems occur when you need
to call the overridden function in the parent class. Unfortunately this is quite common as you may
want to define the function in the subclass as being the original function plus
some extra work. If that explanation has
made you completely confused take a look at the example below.
There is a (hacky) work around. The basic idea is to define a unique method
name in each class for the same method.
Then the extended class can reference directly to the unique method name
in its parent.
To achieve the appearance of polymorphism when using the
class you just create a method with the desired name in every class definition
that calls the unique method name in that class. An example will explain it better:
class A {
function A() {
}
function
A_dspTwo() {
echo
"A: Two<br>";
}
function
dspTwo() {
return
$this->A_dspTwo(); // call the class
A dspTwo method
}
}
class B extends A {
function B() {
$this->A(); // call the parent constructor.
}
function
B_dspTwo() {
$this->A_dspTwo();
echo
"B: Two<br>";
}
function
dspTwo() {
return
$this->B_dspTwo();
}
}
$object = new B();
$object->dspTwo();
This is supported by the Zend engine and will thus be
supported in PHP 4.0.
4.1.4.4 Trouble with Types
PHP is a loosely typed language. That means that the variables actually do
have types, but in general you do not need to worry about them. PHP will automatically convert variables
between types when required.
Unfortunately there are some cases where you need to
manually convert the type of variables.
This can lead to confusion because they are very rare. Below is an example page to highlight how
rare these cases can be:
<h2>Test
String Integer Comparisons</h2>
<?php
$a
= 1;
$b
= '2';
if
($a < $b) {
echo
ss_as_string($a).' < '.ss_as_string($b);
}
else
{
echo ss_as_string($a).' >=
'.ss_as_string($b);
}
?>
<p>
<?php
$a
= 2;
$b
= '2';
if
($a == $b) {
echo ss_as_string($a).' ==
'.ss_as_string($b);
}
else
{
echo ss_as_string($a).' !=
'.ss_as_string($b);
}
?>
<p>
<?php
$a
= array(2, '1');
if
($a[0] > $a[1]) {
echo ss_as_string($a[0]).' >
'.ss_as_string($a[1]);
}
else
{
echo ss_as_string($a[0]).' <=
'.ss_as_string($a[1]);
}
?>
<p>
<?
$a
= array('2', '1');
echo
ss_as_string($a).'<br>sorts to<br>';
sort($a);
echo
ss_as_string($a);
?>
<p>
<?
$a
= array(2, 1);
echo
ss_as_string($a).'<br>sorts to<br>';
sort($a);
echo
ss_as_string($a);
?>
<p>
<?
$a
= array('2', 1);
echo
ss_as_string($a).'<br>sorts to<br>';
sort($a);
echo
ss_as_string($a);
?>
<p>
<?
$a
= array(2, '1');
echo
ss_as_string($a).'<br>sorts to<br>';
sort($a);
echo
ss_as_string($a);
?>
Here is the output from these tests. Notice that all the tests work correctly
except for the last one, sorting array(2, ‘1’).
We can even sort array(‘2’, 1) without problems. The error occurs when we have multiple types
in an array passed to the sort function with the order number then string.
Long(1)
< String(2)
Long(2)
== String(2)
Long(2)
> String(1)
Array(
0 ==> String(2)
1 ==> String(1)
)
sorts to
Array(
0 ==> String(1)
1 ==> String(2)
)
0 ==> String(2)
1 ==> String(1)
)
sorts to
Array(
0 ==> String(1)
1 ==> String(2)
)
Array(
0 ==> Long(2)
1 ==> Long(1)
)
sorts to
Array(
0 ==> Long(1)
1 ==> Long(2)
)
0 ==> Long(2)
1 ==> Long(1)
)
sorts to
Array(
0 ==> Long(1)
1 ==> Long(2)
)
Array(
0 ==> String(2)
1 ==> Long(1)
)
sorts to
Array(
0 ==> Long(1)
1 ==> String(2)
)
0 ==> String(2)
1 ==> Long(1)
)
sorts to
Array(
0 ==> Long(1)
1 ==> String(2)
)
Array(
0 ==> Long(2)
1 ==> String(1)
)
sorts to
Array(
0 ==> Long(2)
1 ==> String(1)
)
0 ==> Long(2)
1 ==> String(1)
)
sorts to
Array(
0 ==> Long(2)
1 ==> String(1)
)
4.1.5 Tricky Concepts
4.1.5.1 Include vs Require
Include() and require() are slightly different. Basically, include is conditional and require
is not.
This would include 'somefile' if $something is true:
if($something){
include("somefile");
}
This would include 'somefile' unconditionally
if($something){
require("somefile");
}
This would have VERY strange effects if somefile looked
like:
} echo "Ha!
I'm here regardless of something: $something<br>\n";
if (false) {
Another interesting example is to consider what will happen
if you use include() or require() inside a loop.
$i
= 1;
while
($i < 3) {
require(“somefile.$i”);
$i++;
}
Using require() as above will cause the same file to be used
every single iteration. Clearly this is
not the intention since the file name should be changing in each iteration of
the loop. We need to use include() as
below. Include() will be evaluated at
each iteration of the loop including somefile.0, somefile.1, etc as expected.
$i
= 1;
while
($i < 3) {
include(“somefile.$i”);
$i++;
}
The only interesting question that remains is what file will
be required above. It turns out that PHP
uses the value of $i when it reads the require() statement for the first
time. So, the require() loop above will
include something.1 two times. The include()
loop includes something.1 and something.2.
4.1.5.2 Echo vs Print
There is a difference between the two, but speed-wise it
should be irrelevant which one you use.
print() behaves like a function in that you can do:
$ret = print "Hello World";
and $ret will be 1.
That means that print can be used as part of a more complex
expression where echo cannot. print is
also part of the precedence table which it needs to be if it is to be used
within a complex expression.
It is just about at the bottom of the precendence list though. Only "," AND, OR and XOR are lower.
echo is marginally faster since it doesn't set a return
value if you really want to get down to the nitty gritty.
If the grammar is:
echo expression [, expression[, expression] ... ]
Then
echo ( expression, expression )
is not valid. (
expression ) reduces to just an expression so this would be valid:
echo ("howdy"),("partner");
but you would simply write this as:
echo "howdy","partner";
if you wanted to use two expressions. Putting the brackets in there serves no
purpose since there is no operator precendence issue with a single expression
like that.
4.1.6 Scripting with PHP
It’s easy to forget that PHP is a complete programming
language that can be used for more than just generating web pages. I was once writing a script to receive emails
and place them in a database. I was
fumbling around in Perl and shell scripts until it dawned on me to install PHP
for scripting. 30 minutes later the
emails were churning in.
Installing PHP for scripting on unix is easy. Just remove the –with-apache directive from
your configure options. This will create
the PHP binary that can be used to run scripts directly from the command
line. There are complete instructions
for installing PHP for scripting here:
http://www.e-gineer.com/instructions
You can then write your script like any other shell
script. Here is an example:
#!/usr/local/bin/php
–q
<?php
//
your php code here
?>
Once
you start scripting with PHP the possibilities are endless. It’s a fully featured language, you can do
anything you would normally do in a shell script.
4.1.7 Extreme Programming
We are getting a little off topic here, but I believe
programming techniques are an important part of being a good programmer.
My working style is based on the ideas of Extreme
Programming. From the Extreme
Programming web site:
XP improves a software project in four essential ways;
communication, simplicity, feedback, and courage. XP programmers communicate
with their customers and fellow programmers. They keep their design simple and
clean. They get feedback by testing their software starting on day one. They
deliver the system to the customers as early as possible and implement changes
as suggested. With this foundation XP programmers are able to courageously
respond to changing requirements and technology.
The focus on speed and change is what makes Extreme
Programming so suitable for web projects.
You can learn more about Extreme Programming here:
http://www.extremeprogramming.org
5 Getting Help
There are a number of resources available for PHP help. The PHP community is generous with its time and
assistance. Make use of their
contributions and use the time you save to help others.
The PHP Knowledge Base is a growing collection of PHP
related information. It captures the
knowledge from the mailing list into a complete collection of searchable,
correct answers. Of course, I may be a
little biased.
The PHP manual is a great reference point for information on
functions or language constructs.
If you can’t find the relevant information in the PHP
Knowledge Base your next stop should be the mailing list archives. There are thousands of questions on the
mailing list every month so you can be almost certain your question has been
asked before. Prepare to do some wading.
If all that searching fails to help, try asking on the
mailing list. A lot of PHP gurus reside
there.
If all these on-line resources aren’t enough or you hate
reading from a computer screen, you might be interested in one of the many PHP
books that are now available.
