Question

This question has two parts:

#1

I have a functions.php that is filled with functions. I have to scroll to find the function I want, and even with comments to delineate where one ends and the next begins, it’s sometimes difficult to find what I want.

I have broken up the functions into individual PHP files and used, for example, include_once 'assets/functions/author_list.php'; to make the functions.php file much cleaner.

So the first question is: will using multiple includes in functions.php slow down load time or affect site performance on the front or back end?

#2

Second question is similar. If I have a function such as the following in functions.

<?php
function ao_post_meta() {
?>
                        <div class="post-meta">                     
                            <time datetime="<?php the_time('Y-m-d'); ?>"><?php the_time('M j, Y'); ?></time>
<?php if('videos' == get_post_type(get_the_ID())) { ?>
                            <a class="author-link" href="<?php bloginfo('wpurl'); ?>/character/<?php echo get_the_author_meta( 'user_nicename' ); ?>">
                                <span><?php the_author(); ?></span>
                            </a>
<?php } else { ?>
                            <a class="author-link" href="<?php echo get_author_posts_url(get_the_author_meta( 'ID' )); ?>">
                                <span><?php the_author(); ?></span>
                            </a>
<?php }?>
                            <a class="comment-link" href=""><?php echo get_comments_number(); ?></a> 
                        </div>
<?php
}
?>

Is it better to simply put that in a separate PHP file, my-post-meta.php, and use include(my-post-meta.php) in my template rather than calling it as a function?

Thanks!

Answer 1

#1
Yes, it will. But I recommend you don’t worry about it, because:

• If your amount of included files is not big it will have really small influence, which won’t be visible at all;
• There is opcode cache extension for PHP at the hosting, and it will reduce influence of include calls;

#2
I prefer to extract all templates into separate phtml files which are stored in separate folder (for example “templates”) and include it when it’s needed. It will increase readability of your functions. For example you will have following code:

<?php
function ao_post_meta() {
    include './templates/mycustom-template.phtml';
}
?>

In general my advise is following:

Try to keep nice/intuitive organized folder/files structure instead of
putting everything in one file. It will make development and
maintaining easier.