If you're anything like me, you have had your head spinning with questions [...] these and other dilemmas (add your own to the list) sometimes make peace of mind a nearly impossible goal.

The tutorial talks about a few simple methods for running benchmark data including the use of microtime(), an OOP method and wrapping the call inside a method of their class.

Today I was just thinking what are the possible ways to count the occurrence of a specific word inside a string. I found some possible ways finally and I just benchmarked them. Wanna see the result?? - for sure you will find it interesting too.

Methods range from a simple split() and count() call out to using the regular expression functions to locate the matches. After running it four times (to check for accuracy), he the stats were pretty much the same. It looks like the substr+count method was the fastest overall with last place falling to the array function method.

One of the characteristics of meta programming is lots and lots of dynamicism everywhere. So here's my php question: Is there a real difference between call_user_func versus call_user_func_array and the variable function syntax i.e. $function_name() ? As best as a quick experiment shows they seem to function the same although I did a quick hack / quick doc check as opposed to really drilling into it. Any efficiency benefits in doing it one way or another?

Matthew replies on his blog by running some benchmarks (and wondering why Scott didn't run his own).

Back to benchmarking. Scott asks, "Is there a real difference between call_user_func versus call_user_func_array and the variable function syntax i.e. $function_name()?"

The short answer: absolutely. The long answer? Read on.

He details what the differences are in the functionality (how they're used and all) as well as examples of their usage. He whips up a test class and function to go through different benchmarks, testing response times with the microtime functionality of PHP. He results aren't too surprising, but you'll have to check out his post to get the full details.

Basically, the script works with the microtime functionality in PHP to do some speed tests for the amount of data given divided by how long it takes that data to get out to the user.