It is usefull to cache certain things between Php script executions.
Some boards written in Php cache the forum architecture so a difficult query hasn’t got to be run every time a guest views the board.
There are a few ways to cache data:
- Php script. Data will be stored as a normal php file which will be included during execution
- Serialized object in file. Data will be serialized and dumped to a file which will be read every page view
- Database storage. Data will be serialized and stored in a database and queried every page view.
There are a lot of myths about using a database would be way slower than a normal php file.
I’ve run a few tests caching a ~16kB php array, the results:
Serialized object stored in file: 0.0015ms
Object in PHP script: 0.0121ms
Serialized object stored in mySQL database: 0.0015ms
It seems to be quicker to use a serialized array in a file as configuration file than a config.php php script!
Databases although just as quick as normal files are favored by me for they are much more scalable.