What is faster: include() or file_get_contents()?
file-get-contents, include, php
Solution
They are of course different
- Include will parse PHP code inside it
- file_get_contents will return just the content
So if yuo want just to retrive the html content of page use `file_get_contents` otherwise if you need to parse PHP code use `include();`
Notice: if you want to retrive the content of a page hosted on your website you should use local path not web path to your resource, ie:
- Do: `file_get_contents('/home/user/site/file.html');`
- Do Not: `file_get_contents('http://example.com/file.html');`
Problem
I am working on a SEO system for my project and am optimizing all links with a single page. Excerpt from `.htaccess` file: ``` RewriteRule ^(.+)$ seo.php [L,QSA] ``` This SEO file (`seo.php`) will get the requested path and parse it to be as valid url into my script. I am using `include('cat.php?catid=1')` at the end of `seo.php` and everything is working fine, but I wonder which is faster: `include()` or `file_get_contents()`? When I use `file_get_content('cat.php?catid=1')`, it displays the source of the PHP file, but when I use `file_get_content('http://localhost/cat.php?catid=1')`, it displays the normal page. So, which is faster: `file_get_content()` or `include()`?