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@NogDogJun 25.2015 — #Within the same scope, I'd say go ahead and save it to a variable if you need to use it multiple times within that scope. However, I'd avoid using "global" within any functions. If you find yourself needing to do that, then either you need to be able to pass that value as an additional parameter to that function that needs it, or else perhaps create some sort of config class in which you set a static property with that value, e.g.:
That being said, you still have a lot of the downside of using "global" in that case, as the dependency on that Config class is hidden within the function that needs it, so I'd still prefer explicitly passing anything that's needed into the function that uses it.
Best practice for getting a result from a function many times?
I have searched on this and I only found one reference to the topic anywhere and it was brief and vague but at least one person said repeating the function over and over is best. But, that doesn’t seem right.
Example:
Using WordPress, I’m writing my functions.php file and I have to call get_template_directory_uri() to get the path to my template files.
Usually developers seem to just use that function over and over as many times as needed. But, it was my understanding that this is wasteful and it’s simpler to just call the function once, put it in a global variable, and use the variable throughout the page.
Or, if globals are undesirable it could at least be called only once per function, assigned to a variable, and then the variable gets used 10 times in a row, to enqueue styles and scripts for example.
So, instead of:
[CODE]… get_template_directory_uri() . ‘/path/to/file/1.css’
… get_template_directory_uri() . ‘/path/to/file/2.css’
… get_template_directory_uri() . ‘/path/to/file/3.css’
It would be:
[CODE]$template_directory_uri = get_template_directory_uri();
… $template_directory_uri . ‘/path/to/file/1.css’
… $template_directory_uri . ‘/path/to/file/2.css’
… $template_directory_uri . ‘/path/to/file/3.css’
Doesn’t repeating a variable over and over make more sense that using a function repeatedly? It’s not like it’s changing.
What’s the best practice? Thanks
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@NogDogJun 25.2015 — #Within the same scope, I'd say go ahead and save it to a variable if you need to use it multiple times within that scope. However, I'd avoid using "global" within any functions. If you find yourself needing to do that, then either you need to be able to pass that value as an additional parameter to that function that needs it, or else perhaps create some sort of config class in which you set a static property with that value, e.g.:[code=php]
class Config
{
public static template_directory_uri;
}
Config::$static_template_directory_uri = get_static_template_directory_uri();
function sample()
{
echo "URI is " . Config::$static_template_directory_uri;
}
[/code]That being said, you still have a lot of the downside of using "global" in that case, as the dependency on that Config class is hidden within the function that needs it, so I'd still prefer explicitly passing anything that's needed into the function that uses it.