Optimizing Your PHP Apps

PHP is a very complex language and unfortunately at times it can be quite slow. Here are some easy things you can do that can speed up your application.

Stop using foreach()

foreach() has been proven by several benchmarks to be extremely slow. Do not use it under any circumstances. Here’s an example of an inefficient piece of code which uses foreach():

$myArray = array(1, 2, 3, 4);
foreach ($myArray as $value) {
     echo $value;
}

Instead, just use regular for.

$myArray = array(1, 2, 3, 4);
$amount = count($myArray);
for ($i = 0; $i <= $amount; $i++) {
    echo $myArray[$i];
}

They do exactly the same thing, but the second one is much faster.

Avoid Double Quotes

Double quotes (” “) should only be used when needed, otherwise you should use single quotes. Double quotes search for variables within the string which takes up time; and if there’s no variables within the string then it’s pointless to use double quotes.

Use echo Efficiently

If you do this:

echo "Hello" . $myVar;

PHP has to concatenate “Hello” and the value of $myVar, and then output it.

However, if you use a comma like this:

echo "Hello", $myVar;

PHP does not have to concatenate the “Hello” and $myVar, instead it just outputs both of them.

Calculate the array size before hand

I often see code like this:

$myArray = array(1, 2, 3, 4);
for ($i = 0; $i <= count($myArray); $i++) {
    echo $myArray[$i];
}

The problem? Every iteration $myArray is recounted. This is a huge waste of time. Instead, use this:

$myArray = array(1, 2, 3, 4);
$amount = count($myArray);
for ($i = 0; $i <= $amount; $i++) {
    echo $myArray[$i];
}

Install APC

APC, or Alternative PHP Cache is a free addon to PHP which speeds up PHP by caching its opcodes. I highly recommend it for any site with a large audience.

So there you have it, 5 easy ways to make your application run faster, I hope these helped you and make sure to leave a comment!