Question

I am adding meta tags, titles, stylesheets and scripts to each page via PHP – but all separate from page to page (since i have a header.php that is universal) I am still on the fence though of what is faster for 20+ pages. I could easily store all my values and such in a multidimensional array and return the whole array, then distribute each value accordingly or I can query a database but really which would give me the fastest result? Would it really be that much slower to even matter? Would the user even notice? All questions I have no answers to what do you guys think?

Answer 1

I wouldn’t bring a database into the mix for a couple dozen pages – not unless you’ve got a bunch of content you need to store in there. Rather, what I would do is build the array on each page, then include the template:

<?php
  $page = array(
    'title'   => 'Index Page',
    'styles'  => array( 'reset.css', 'text.css', '960.css' ),
    'scripts' => array( 'jquery.js' )
  );

  include('header.php');
?>

  <p>Page content here<?p>

<?php
  include('footer.php');
?>

Within your header.php file, have the following:

<title><?php echo isset($page['title']) ? $page['title'] : 'Default' ; ?></title>
<?php foreach ( $page['styles'] as $style ) : ?>
<link rel='stylesheet' href='<?php echo $style; ?>' />
<?php endforeach; ?>

This may be suitable for much of what you’re doing, but when things start to get heavier – definitely put more long-term stock in a database solution.