CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phpoptimization
vitto
vitto

Reputation: 19476

PHP: One big echo (or print) VS many small echo (or print)

I should echo a table with 1000 rows of data, can I echo all the data in one string or is it better to echo a row per time?

Upvotes: 8

Views: 3973

Answers (6)

Your Common Sense
Your Common Sense

Reputation: 157896

As Pekka said, it doesn't matter. Do it in the way that makes your code best readable (by using a template preferably, instead of just lame echo within mysql fetch array loop).

When (if ever) it become a bottleneck - profile it first, and optimize then. Based on the real life numbers, not rumors.

As for the particular 1000-rows table - paginate it, silly. just paginate.
Make your app not to do useless job. That's the real secret of optimization.

Upvotes: 0

ajreal
ajreal

Reputation: 47321

echo row per time, using lesser buffer memory and less memory (you don't need to use a variable to hold the data)

based on the tested that I conducted for the selected answer, it show opposite

Upvotes: 1

scoates
scoates

Reputation: 853

This is old, and some of it is outdated, but you should still definitely read How Long Is a Piece of String?

That said, unless you've already heavily optimized everything else, it's unlikely that echo is your bottleneck.

Upvotes: 1

Tobias
Tobias

Reputation: 7380

According to http://phplens.com/lens/php-book/optimizing-debugging-php.php (see last third of article) you should use one big echo statement, and use single quotes instead of double quotes, so PHP hasn´t to check for variables within the string.

simple test for support:

$bgn = microtime(true);
for ($i=0; $i<=1000; $i++)
{
  echo $i;
}
echo "\n", round(microtime(true)-$bgn, 4), "\n";
unset($bgn);
$bgn = microtime(true);
$b = '';
for ($i=0; $i<=1000; $i++)
{
  $b.=$i;
}
echo $b;
echo "\n", round(microtime(true)-$bgn, 4), "\n";
?>

First run return 0.0022, while second run return 0.0007 ... however this is small set of data, memory usage is quite small.

Upvotes: 13

Thariama
Thariama

Reputation: 50832

It depends on your aim. Time consumption usually is no issue depending on the number of fields, so is the mermory usage for this action (todays memory is large enough to cause no problems withonly 1000 rows).

My feeling tells me it might be more practical to echo it line by line in order to do modifications, but i think it is not a big deal at all. Do what you like.

Upvotes: 0

AlexV
AlexV

Reputation: 23098

I would echo line by line. This way you save memory (no need to load all lines in memory before outputting them).

Upvotes: 5

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