Top 7 PHP Best Practices to Follow

PHP language is one of the widely used programming languages at the current time. However, if the PHP developers from India or worldwide use outdated practices then PHP development becomes hard. Hence, learning and implementing new PHP best practices can help developers with better and quicker development.

While hiring you as an employer should ensure that they follow PHP best practices while developing your project. Hence, always choose reliable PHP programmers in India  for developing your business project.

Moreover, as PHP is complex to learn, developers have to keep them updated with the latest upgrades taking place in this language. Monitoring these factors, here are the top 7 PHP best practices that are important to implement. If you, as a developer, are not practicing these primary techniques, it’s time to implement them in your projects. Let’s dive in to know more about PHP best practices.

Top 7 PHP best practices for easy PHP development

There are various best practices that developers implement while working with PHP development. Here are the 7 best of them:

1# Focus on indentation, line length, and white spaces

Imagine you are reading a lengthy document and it has no proper format and spaces. Will you be able to read it? No, right! You will quickly move it to the trash without giving it a second look. The same thing also applies to coding formats. If there is no proper indentation, line length, and white spaces, the code becomes hard to read and decipherable. So, here are some matters to take care of when writing PHP code:

• Try to use indents of at least 4 spaces.
• Do not extend the line greater than 80 characters.
• Do check the tab settings before you write the code.
• Try to avoid using tabs for spacing as different systems have varied tab settings.

2# Maintaining a proper coding standard

It’s important to maintain a genuine coding standard, as it can be very painful if different programmers use different styles of coding in the same project.

If such a thing happens, the source code of your project becomes unmanageable. There are chances that some developers might also not bother to maintain the pre-defined standards, and it will create trouble for each team member of that project. In this situation, the code will look like a huge garbage pile which is hard to read and manage.

If one maintains a symmetrical coding standard, it gets easier for other developers and also testers to debug the code. If everyone in the team follows the same rules while writing the code, the project will tend to be more productive and easy to deploy.

3# Always use the latest PHP version

One of the best practices of PHP is to always switch to the latest and stable version of PHP in one’s coding practices. It helps developers to get updated with modern coding practices along with advancing new ideas of coding.

The latest version of PHP has added functionalities and has also overcome the errors of the previous version. The newer version also adds functions that reduce the dependencies of the product on different paid or open-source add-ons. However, one can be aware that sometimes these small changes can cause trouble in previous versions of the code. So, at last, it is always a good choice to use the last PHP version.

4# Use Include and Require in the code

Both include and require the functions that are used for including the PHP code in different files. It’s the same as copying the coding structure from one file into another file. It also saves time and effort for the developers by including PHP code without pasting it.

Additionally, it makes your PHP project code more readable. For instance, the files like footer and header should be included in the code using the include & require function in other files. This can be done easily by just writing a single code line:

How to use require:

<?php require “header.php”; ?>

How to use include:

<?php include “header.php”; ?>

The difference between these two functions is that the include() function continues that file execution even if the file path is incorrect. Whereas, the require() function generates an error and stops the file from executing further processes.

5# Check if the default value is false or null

PHP is just like a loose typing system. There are many ways to verify the value of a variable in PHP. It can create confusion if these variables are used inappropriately. For instance, using == for checking false or null values can give the output as false if the value of any of these is false.

With the asset () function, it checks if the value is not null, but it will not check whether the value is boolean false or not. In the same way, is_null() verifies whether the value is null, and the is_boolean function will check if the value is a boolean value- that is true or false.

There’s also a better alternative available: === operator. This operator checks whether the values are the same, which isn’t the same as the == operator in the PHP world. It is also faster in execution than is_bool() and is_null(), and also looks better than using a comparison function.

For example:

<?php

$a=0;

$b=null;

if($a==null)

{

printf(“a is not null”);

}

if($b===null)

{

printf(“this matches for the type and value”);}

?>

6# Turning on the error reporting while coding

Error reporting can act as a miracle while writing the code. I am sure that it would be better to know that you have made a mistake at the same time while writing the code. Here, PHP helps you with the same. It has got a useful feature that you can spot errors while developing an app.

The error_reporting() function will help you with the same. You have to just turn it on just prior to writing PHP code. Whenever there’s an error or bug, you can immediately get a notification of the same. E_ALL is also a function that will help you report similar kinds of errors.

7# Do not use functions in loops

Veteran developers as well as beginners use different functions inside a loop just for shortening the line of codes. It is certainly not a good practice. When a function in the loop hampers the website’s performance.

There is no chance that the browsers can hold-up for a site to load completely. If this happens, your users will move toward your competitive sites.

To overcome this, one has to minimize the execution time of the website. But when one writes functions inside the loop, it will enlarge the execution time. Hence, one should always focus on writing simple code and reducing the execution time of the features of the website.

Concluding words

In conclusion of this article, the PHP best practices mentioned here are crucial to implementing for developing a maintainable, secure, and robust web app.

Source

Article source: https://article-realm.com/article/Computers/Software/47907-Top-7-PHP-Best-Practices-to-Follow.html