7 Advanced PHP Tips to Improve Your Programming

Since 1995, PHP has been the choice of programming languages for many Web developers to develop Web applications – small business web sites, blogs, e-commerce sites, Plugins, add-ons, and many more. In addition to that, PHP also has a huge online community and their members working towards almost around the clock crafting out new innovations each day.
PHP is both popular and free tool. PHP is an open-source programming language, meaning it’s completely free to use and extend its basic functionality.

7 Advanced PHP Tips to Improve Your Programming

The server-side scripting language is also supported by almost all the popular Web hosting server these days. The programming language is based on the standard C programming language, which is the standard programming language used by almost every Web developers.
PHP is both easy as well as fun to learn. You can examine current extension, modify it, and extend the functionality of the script and are use them anywhere you want.
If you know the basics of PHP, you can easily create interesting applications using PHP – news system, blogs, membership system, listing system, online shopping site.
In order to create interesting applications, you need to at least have a basic understanding of 7 PHP techniques will help you maximize output, improve your coding efficiency, and basically improve the environment you’ll be working mostly.

1. Be Familiar with SQL Injection

SQL injection is dangerous. Dangerous enough to allow hackers enter your database breaching the security by finding vulnerabilities in your script. Why? Well, if you realize, most programs these are built using PHP and MySQL. So knowing what to avoid beforehand helps you craft a secure code.
We’ve covered an article – avoiding PHP and MySQL Vulnerabilities – that helps you avoid certain coding practices so that you’re code is less prone to attacks from hackers.

2. Know the Basics of Comparison Operators

Comparison operators are crucial part of PHP. Most programmers, while they’re still in the learning phase, might not know the difference between some important comparison operators as they need to.
Each operator has their own significance while using them to compare between two values. For example, many PHPers don’t know the difference between =, ==, and === operators. While ‘=’ assigns a value, ‘==’ looks for equality, and then ‘===’ looks for identity.

3. Conserve the else Statement

Minimizing codes slightly hinders readability. But this tip, and the next that follows, will speed up coding process. But if you don’t want to sacrifice readability, you might as well skip this tip.
Making code simpler and smaller is a good practice.
Here’s an example.
A typical else statement looks like this:

if(condition is true){
$a=2;
}
else{
$x=5;
}

If the $a will have the default value of 5, then just start with it. Don’t bother using the ‘else’ statement just for the sake of it.

$a=5;
if(condition is true){
$a=2;
}

This might not seem a lot, but if you’re coding a hundred lines of code in each page, then this trick will surely save you a lot of time involved while writing various if/else statements..

4. Drop Brackets

Drop unnecessary brackets while coding to save few characters in your PHP code. Just like using the minimal else statement, you can minimize the file size by dropping brackets for single-line expression.

if($result){
print “I am here.”;
}

Is as same as:

if($result) $print “I am here.”;

Do the same for multiple stances.

if($result==’true’) print “I am here.”;
else print “Okay, Print this one instead.”;

Got it?

5. Use str_replace() over preg_replace() and ereg_replace()

While replacing strings, str_replace() is faster, almost 61% more faster than preg_replace() and ereg_replace().
But while using regular expressions, preg_replace() and ereg_replace() functions will be faster than str_replace().

6. Consider Using Ternary Operators

Instead of always using the usual if and else statements, use ternary operators. Ternary operators not only free space, but it also makes codes neat, stripped, and clear.
Beware when you use more ternary operators for a single statement, as PHP gets confused what to do next in those circumstances.
Here’s an example of ternary operator.

$dothis = (empty($_POST[‘dothis’]))? ‘default’ : $_POST [‘dothis’];

Which is as identical as the following if and else statement.

if(empty($_POST[‘dothis’])){
$action = ‘default’;
}else{
$action = $_POST[‘dothis’];
}

7. Use Memcached for Database caching

Memcached is an excellent way to cache your database. While there are many caching options available, Memcached seems to always top the list as the most efficient way to cache database.
It’s not easy to implement the caching system in the first place, but if you’re using PHP and MySQL to build a website, then Memcached might be the answer. Memcached will certainly help speed up the process by caching up web page and script, thereby serving those scripts from Memcached Server rather than the actual server. The web page request, as a result, becomes faster.
The caching structure was built for the first time for LiveJournal – a PHP-powered blogging platform.

8. Bonus: Use Frameworks

Use PHP Frameworks whenever possible. It’s true that you won’t require using frameworks for each projects, but frameworks like Zend, CakePHP, Symphony, and CodeIgniter can greatly reduce the time you spend while developing a site.
Frameworks are software that is bundled with frequently used utilities that help reduce the overhead while developing Web applications. For example, Framework takes care of all of those trivial and repetitive tasks, letting you speed up the Web development process itself.
Check out our article on – Which Framework should you use? – that’ll give you helpful advice on what to look for when it comes to choosing the right framework.
Less time spent in coding means less time spent in debugging and testing.

Summary of 7 Advanced PHP Tips to Improve Your Programming

When it comes to coding PHP, there’s always less time and much to do. First, there are repetitive codes, then bad PHP coding practice, followed by vulnerabilities that hackers exploit to enter your Website.
These top 7 advanced PHP coding practices will help you learn good practice early on. These tips will not only help free some space, but it also will make the code clean, tiny, and clear. As a result, coding becomes more enjoyable process, taking off overheads off your shoulder, and web development process more efficient.