Question

I wonder why many CMSs (cmsms, wordpress,joomla and …) use index.php for all articles in all modules? how it can help them? why they don’t use separate php files for each module or plugin? I wanna design a small CMS and wanna know this technik. thanks

Answer 1

why they don’t use separate php files for each module or plugin?

They can’t afford to do so. The CMS’s machanism allows third party plugins as well for which they can’t create separate pages beforehand and that will be an overhead anyway.

What CMSs typically do is transter requests through URL and implement design patterns such as:

• Front Controller
• Model View Controller

This helps them keep simple and be able to figure out which classes to load and functions to call. Same goes easy in case there is a plugin in-house or third party.

You should study those patterns to figure out the things for yourself.

Here is quote from Front Controller:

The front controller may be implemented as a Java object, or as a
script in a script language like PHP, ASP, CFML or JSP that is called
on every request of a web session. This script, for example an
index.php, would handle all tasks that are common to the application
or the framework, such as session handling, caching, and input
filtering. Based on the specific request it would then instantiate
further objects and call methods to handle the particular task(s)
required.

The alternative to a front controller would be individual scripts like
login.php and order.php that would each then satisfy the type of
request. Each script would have to duplicate code or objects that are
common to all tasks. But each script might also have more flexibility
to implement the particular task required.