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https://github.com/devmount/faster-php

Testing different approaches to improve PHP script performance
https://github.com/devmount/faster-php

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Testing different approaches to improve PHP script performance

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# faster-php ⚡



Different approaches to improve PHP script performance. For discussion or additional methods [create an issue](https://github.com/devmount/faster-php/issues/new) or comment on the corresponding [DEV article](https://dev.to/devmount/4-php-tricks-to-boost-script-performance-ol1).



## Get started



To test the methods yourself, first make sure PHP 7.4 is installed:



```bash

$ php -v

PHP 7.4.4 (cli) (built: Mar 20 2020 13:47:17) ...

```



Then clone this repo and install dependencies using [Composer](https://getcomposer.org):



```bash

git clone https://github.com/devmount/faster-php

cd faster-php

composer install

```



Now you are ready to call the one of the test scripts presented below.



## List of methods



### 1. Removing duplicates in array



Method:



```php

// using

array_keys(array_flip($array));

// instead of

array_unique($array);

```



Test:



```bash

php test_array_unique.php

```



Result:



| method | execution time |

|--------|---------------:|

| `array_unique` | 787.31 ms |

| `array_keys` `array_flip` | 434.03 ms |



The alternative approach is **1.8x** (44.87%) faster in this measurement. On average, it was ~1.5x (30%) faster. Tested on an array with 4166667 numeric elements having 3333333 unique entries.



Note: This is only applicable for simple, one-dimensional arrays since `array_flip` replaces keys by values.



### 2. Get random array element



Method:



```php

// using

$array[mt_rand(0, count($array) - 1)];

// instead of

array_rand($array);

```



Test:



```bash

php test_array_rand.php

```



Result:



| method | execution time |

|--------|---------------:|

| `array_rand` | 25.99 μs |

| `mt_rand` | 0.95 μs |



The alternative approach is **27.3x** (96.33%) faster in this measurement. On average, it was ~8x (87%) faster. Tested on an array with 5000000 random numeric elements.



### 3. Test for alphanumeric characters



Method:



```php

// using

ctype_alnum($string);

// instead of

preg_match('/[a-zA-Z0-9]+/', $string);

```



Test:



```bash

php test_preg_match.php

```



Result:



| method | execution time |

|--------|---------------:|

| `preg_match` | 15.39 ms |

| `ctype_alnum` | 2.06 ms |



The alternative approach is **7.5x** (86.59%) faster in this measurement. On average, it was ~4x (76%) faster. Tested on an array of alphanumeric and non-alphanumeric strings with 104448 elements.



The same applies to `ctype_alpha()` (check for alphabetic characters) and `ctype_digit()` (check for numeric characters)



### 4. Replace substrings



Method:



```php

// using

strtr($string, 'a', 'b');

// instead of

str_replace('a', 'b', $string);

```



Test:



```bash

php test_string_replace.php

```



Result:



| method | execution time |

|--------|---------------:|

| `str_replace` | 676.59 ms |

| `strtr` | 305.59 ms |



The alternative approach is **2.2x** (54.83%) faster in this measurement. On average, it was ~2x (51%) faster. Tested on an array of random strings with 5000000 elements.



### Additional performance improvements



Here are some additional points I integrated into my coding convention that I found to improve perfomance slightly (if applicable):



- Prefer JSON over XML

- Declare variables before, not in every iteration of the loop

- Avoid function calls in the loop header (in `for ($i=0; $i

-