Use require or directly call the *.php file

Question

Currently my project is following the following structure.

    // SESSAO
if(($SisFuncoes->verificaPermissaoSecao($secao, 'home')) || $secao == null){
    // requerindo a home do site.
    require("html_home.php");        
}
elseif($SisFuncoes->verificaPermissaoSecao($secao, 'cadastrar')){
    require("html_cadastrar.php");
}
//.
//.
//.    
elseif($SisFuncoes->verificaPermissaoSecao($secao, 'admin_usuarios', 3)){
    require("html_admin_usuarios.php");
}
elseif($SisFuncoes->verificaPermissaoSecao($secao, 'questionario', 1)){
    require("html_questionario.php");
}        
else{
    // requerindo a home do site.
    require("html_home.php");
}

These validations are in the index.php file so user navigation is done through secao=questionario, secao=cadastrar..., thus browsing the entire site and done without directly accessing the other pages only with the use of require.

This is instead of using the require and working with using "$PHP_SELF/secao=cadastrar" I thought of something similar to the example: "$PHP_SELF/cadatrar.php" using the second mode I will directly access the.php file.

My question is which would bring me better performance, maintain access only to index.php with the use of require or direct access to files ?

Answer 1

The default nowadays is to use friendly URL (site.com/nome_da_secao/nome_do_recurso). To do this, it is similar to what you are doing: all addresses access a starting point (index.php) and it decides what to display.

From a performance standpoint, I can’t say. I imagine there’s no reasonable gain, because there’s code you’ll need to execute before any content, so the separate pages would have some require on top anyway.

From the point of view of facilitating maintenance, what you are doing is much better, because you focus execution at this starting point always, rather than having multiple starting points on the whole system. If it’s 10 pages, there’s not so much problem, but if it’s 40 it’s complicated enough, imagine if you solve that some of the pages will run a database access and others will not, then you’ll stay in that sea of crazy and unnecessary includes, your life is a hell.

I personally like to use a micro-framework called Fat-Free-Framework that already comes with a route scheme that makes this workflow a lot easier. https://fatfreeframework.com/3.6/home

Just remember that when using such a router you need to activate Modrewrite in Apache (or .htaccess) and always have it run index.php

RewriteBase /

RewriteRule ^(tmp)\/|\.ini$ - [R=404]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-l
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule .* /index.php [L,QSA]
RewriteRule .* - [E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization},L]