Comments on: The Truth About PHP Variables

By: styx

styx — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 21:54:23 +0000

The results from the last example are very interesting. I didn’t know about such a memory increase when using address. Thanks for the post.

By: Rich

Rich — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 09:09:00 +0000

Wow, thanks so much. I’ve been doing lots of that “ahem” saving memory. Doh! Very enlightenting and excellently written. Thank you.

By: Marco

Marco — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 10:51:20 +0000

The function should be:
MyLangString($name){ return “Hello $name, welcome string in English, etc.”; }

By: Marco

Marco — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 08:38:19 +0000

Thank you for your article. I was debating on how to load language data from a flat file, and had been trying to decide how to store the variables. Would I just use constants, normal variables, an array, a class? Well, I ended up using – functions.

I ran your memory test on loading up say 10 variables full of text, along with loading up 10 functions that simply return the text, and I was shocked to see the difference in memory usage. I just write it like function MyLangString(){ return “My welcome string in English, etc.”; } Then just call the function when I need to either display it or pass it to a variable for later display.

It’s also handy for passing variables that are in the body of my text – such as a first name, or a website name. function MyLangString(){ return “Hello $name, welcome string in English, etc.”; }
echo MyLangString(“Marco”);

By: adamcharnock

adamcharnock — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 08:32:09 +0000

Hi Brad. Thanks, I’m pleased you liked it I try to keep the language reasonably neutral where I can, as well as avoiding topics like cricket, cucumber sandwiches, and the queen :p

I am trying to cook up some more blog posts at the moment, so let me know if there is anything you want to hear about!

By: Brad

Brad — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 02:22:09 +0000

Wow, I suppose the tutorial is nice. Not what I had been searching for anyway. But, I was surprised to see that you are based in England because there weren’t any tell tale vocabulary choices. For what it is worth, which may not be very much…