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.