Question

Alright so I have no idea how to even begin doing this
But basically I have one of the menus that displays on every page come getting it’s text and links from a mysql database.

Here’s the code:

<table class="LeftMenuTable">
<?php
    // Generates the left menu from the LeftMenu_items table
    $result = MySqlQuery("SELECT * FROM Menu_LeftMenu;");
    while ($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result))
    {
        if ((int)$row['header'] == 0)
        {
            // echos value is on or not
            echo "<tr><td class='LeftMenu'><a href='" . $row['url'] . "'>" . $row['text'] . "</a></td></tr>";
        }
        else if ((int)$row['header'] == 1)
        {
            // header
            echo "<tr><td style='border:0px; height:5px;'></td></tr>";  // adds extra empty tabel
            echo "<tr><td class='LeftMenuHeader'><b><strong>" . $row['text'] . "</strong></b></td></tr>";
        }
    }
?>
</table>

function MySqlQuery($Query)
{

    $result = $mysqli->query($Query) or die(ReportMysqlError(mysqli_error($mysqli), $Query));
    return $result;
}

I feel like any sql queries that could be be replaced by html cache somehow are reducing the site’s speed.

If anyone has any information or suggestions it’s much appereciated.

Answer 1

If you were keen enough, I would suggest a slightly different approach.

If you make your pages using a templating language called “Smarty” find out more here. http://smarty.net you should find that smarty will manage the caching for you.

How is this related to your question.

1. It will make your web development easier as you will stop “echoing” content into your HTML.
2. Smarty will do the caching for you. When a smarty template loads, smarty keeps a copy of it (or you can tell it cache a file for x hours, days etc).
3. As you site grows smartys caching will help keep your site running and loading fast.
4. You have to very little work to make caching work, just use smarty templates to build your site.
5. Lastly you may find it a LOT simpler to build sites using smarty.

John.