I got curious about which is actually more efficient at matching a random integer with a set of conditionals. So, I setup a script to create a set of large scripts to test the speed of these different constructs. Using the 'time' command, I measured the speed at which the condition could match a random number.

His results found that the switch statement is generally more than 2 times as fast at matching a simple integer. His tests, however, didn't go through much more than this simple test. It'd be interesting to see what it would do with something more complex (like longer strings or handling the result of an evaluation inside the definition of the switch().

Those are 4 typical errors I introduced in my code, and spend some time debugging it, because I found them really hard to spot. Luckily, once I spotted the actual bug, I find it a lot easier the next time the typo occurs. Therefore I want to share those, so that I may save you some minutes of your life hunting stupid bugs.

His three contributions concern a "missing if", the addition of a random semicolon, operator precedence and a for loop that refuses to work. Others have contributed to the comments on the post as well.

We discussed statements briefly in our last article and even got a sneak peek of an IF-statement. Sure I mean, the image was blurry, and the moment it saw us it ran off into the forest. But we saw it. Honest. So in this article, we're going to take a much closer look at PHP statements and even start learning about loops.

They cover if statements (as mentioned) as well as introduce you to its companions, else and else if. The finish off the article with a brief look at one of the simpler loops, the for loop.

Making mistakes is human, and so is fixing them. In your day-to-day programming adventures, it's inevitable to introduce bugs in your PHP code, especially when you're writing very complex applications with tens of thousands of lines of code spread across tens of files.

In this article they look at things like flattening if statements, spplitting single commands across multiple lines, and the difference between =, ==, and ===.

In my recent post on 'Ajax; Templating; and the Separation of Layout and Logic,' I refer to an Ajax Handler that sits server side to handle Ajax calls. Some elaboration is in order.

As I have stated in the past, I'm a huge fan of Prototype AND I choose PHP as my language of choice...so my examples will be using both, but the idea is portable.

His example is a very basic one, pulling in the data from the $_GET values and, with a combination of dynamic function calls and the use of eval(), provides a simple "framework" to handle your Ajax calls. There are two versions of the same thing - one using if statements and the other a switch and various cases.]]> Thu, 23 Mar 2006 12:37:17 -0600