Question

Which method is least expensive on the server? I am dynamically creating directories and would like each of them to contain an empty html file. Also how could one measure the difference?

$file = text.html;
$newDest = myDir/text.html;
copy($file, $newDest);

VS

$File = "myDir/text.html"; 
$Handle = fopen($File, 'w');
$Data = ''; 
fwrite($Handle, $Data);  
print "Data Written"; 
fclose($Handle); 

Answer 1

Copy operations are generally very expensive for a variety of reasons. I ran the following operations each 1000 times to compare them:

 copy
 touch
 fopen, fwrite, fclose
 fopen, fclose //this still creates the file
 fopen //files closed automatically, but this may take up more memory.

touch is consistently twice as fast as any fopen method (all were around the same speed). copy was always the slowest.

In terms of memory, fopen probably uses more since you have to store the file handle while touch and copy only return booleans.

In summary, use touch.