Question

I have a global “functions.php” file containing functions used throughout my site.

In terms of performance, efficiency, etc – is it better to call one of these functions directly or to define them as constants and call the constant instead? (Or does it matter at all?)

ie

<?php echo site_root(); ?>

vs.

<?php echo SITEROOT; ?>

Thanks

Answer 1

It depends on what site_root() does exactly.

• If all it does is something very simple like read from an array and return a string, it doesn’t matter whether you use the function, or a constant. Use whatever works best for you.

• If the function does something expensive like a database lookup, it is indeed wise to do the call only once, store the result in a constant, and use that in the code.