PHP Code, Efficiency and Benchmarking

[curtiss]

I'm curious if anyone out there has found any good, reliable ways to benchmark various PHP functions. At the moment, I'm looking at trying to compare two or three ways of achieving the same result, and I have no idea how to properly benchmark the two methods to see which is faster, more efficient and more reliable.

For those curious, I am working with data that will always be in the form of a string. That string will always begin with two letters (either "ff" or "fs"), followed by any number of digits. I have considered the following possibilities, but I have no idea which method would be the most efficient, or if it would even make a difference.

I have looked at:

PHP Code:

$val = 'ff27'; # An example of what my val might look like
if(strstr($val,'ff') !== false) {
$id = substr($val,2,strlen($val)-2);
# Perform my code related to the ff value
}
elseif(strstr($val,'fs') !== false) {
$id = substr($val,2,strlen($val)-2);
# Perform my code related to the fs value
} 


PHP Code:

$val = 'ff27'; # An example of what my val might look like
if(strstr($val,'ff') !== false) {
$id = str_replace('ff','',$val);
# Perform my code related to the ff value
}
elseif(strstr($val,'fs') !== false) {
$id = str_replace('fs','',$val);
# Perform my code related to the fs value
} 


PHP Code:

$val = 'ff|27';
list($pre,$id) = explode('|',$val);
if($pre == 'ff') {
# Perform my code related to the ff value
}
elseif($pre == 'fs') {
# Perform my code related to the fs value
} 


Anyone having any thoughts about the efficiency of any of these methods would be greatly appreciated.

In addition, if anyone has any good resources for comparing PHP code to check its efficiency (preferably a free method of doing so) would also be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

[Deadeye]

unfortunately I don’t know of a way to benchmark code. But how often will this code be ran?

15x a sec
30x a sec
etc.

From exp I do know that substring is a slow way of doing things, the last way

$val = 'ff|27';
list($pre,$id) = explode('|',$val);
if($pre == 'ff') {
# Perform my code related to the ff value
}
elseif($pre == 'fs') {
# Perform my code related to the fs value
}

I believe is your best way of handling this problem. This is due to the fact any built in data type, i.e. list, will be able to perform the actions quicker.

I hope this helps in some way. I wish I had more data to back up my claims.

Wesley

*EDIT*
In C# I am able to measure how long a call takes by creating a new thread and a timer. Start the timer before the call to the code you want to measure and stop the timer after the call is finished. Display the time of the timer in nanoseconds and you'll get the time of the code.

I don't know if this is doable in PHP though

[curtiss]

Thanks for the advice. It is appreciated.

I'll keep digging to see if I can find any way to actually test things whenever I run into a situation like this.

If I find anything, I'll let you guys know.