 PHP Page Compression, Page compression for faster page display |
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| crowdogs |
 Dec 27 2010, 01:59 PM
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#1
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Member  Group: Members Posts: 37 Joined: 25-April 10 From: Indiana Member No.: 11,731  |
I've seen somewhere were this bit of php code, as the first line in the HTML (.php) document, is purported to compress the document prior to delivery to the web browser thereby speeding page display. Is this simply too good to be true?
CODE <?php if (substr_count($_SERVER['HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING'], 'gzip')) ob_start("ob_gzhandler"); else ob_start(); ?> <!DOCTYPE HTML> <html>... |
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| Christian J |
Dec 27 2010, 02:11 PM
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#2
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. Group: WDG Moderators Posts: 9,661 Joined: 10-August 06 Member No.: 7 |
gzip does exist: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gzip but my impression is that it speeds up download (due to smaller file size) rather than display. Page rendering might even be slightly slower since the HTML document must first be decompressed.
Can't say if it's worth compressing HTML documents, unless you run high-traffic sites and want to keep costs down. You can reduce the total amount of bandwidth by avoiding bloated tag soup, though --in addition, HTML, HEAD and BODY tags are actually optional in HTML4, and you can leave out the end tags of elements like P, LI, TR, TD etc, as well as any code formatting. If you just want to make pages load faster for the user, you can make many smaller pages instead of a few large ones. But while each individual small page downloads faster, the total bandwidth for viewing them all will become larger since each page needs its own HEAD section, menu markup, etc. |
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| crowdogs |
Dec 27 2010, 03:25 PM
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#3
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Member Group: Members Posts: 37 Joined: 25-April 10 From: Indiana Member No.: 11,731 |
I've misstated, I should have said, to speed download time.
You've made an interesting observation: "Page rendering might even be slightly slower since the HTML document must first be decompressed." I did try a few pages and could discern no difference in "page rendering". But, there are still those using 56k modems--god bless 'em--that might be able to tell a difference. Then again, I might be unreasonably concerned with the the issue. |
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| pandy |
Dec 27 2010, 04:02 PM
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#4
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🌟Computer says no🌟 Group: WDG Moderators Posts: 20,733 Joined: 9-August 06 Member No.: 6 |
I'd say, to the viewer, it's the total time it takes from the URL is requested to when the page can be read that matters. Who can tell the difference anyway, if there isn't a serious problem somewhere along the line?
I think the oneliner you posted assumes the server is Apache and that mod_gzip is installed. It still isn't built in, I think. There's also a way to do it with PHP alone, but I'm to lazy to google it up. Shouldn't be hard to find. |
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| Christian J |
Dec 27 2010, 06:23 PM
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#5
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. Group: WDG Moderators Posts: 9,661 Joined: 10-August 06 Member No.: 7 |
QUOTE(crowdogs @ Dec 27 2010, 09:25 PM)  You've made an interesting observation: "Page rendering might even be slightly slower since the HTML document must first be decompressed." I did try a few pages and could discern no difference in "page rendering". Yes probably the delay is not noticeable. QUOTE But, there are still those using 56k modems--god bless 'em--that might be able to tell a difference. True. Of course images or Flash often cause longer download times then the HTML files, but you can't compress the former more than they already are. Javascript files/libraries might be possible to gzip though (I don't know). |
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| pandy |
Dec 28 2010, 01:24 AM
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#6
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🌟Computer says no🌟 Group: WDG Moderators Posts: 20,733 Joined: 9-August 06 Member No.: 6 |
Text is text.
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| stjepan |
Jan 2 2011, 12:00 PM
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#7
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Serious Coder Group: Members Posts: 329 Joined: 15-October 06 From: zagreb, croatia Member No.: 445 |
I turned on compression on my website and saw a dramatic improvements, it can be measured in milliseconds
 Now, really, the design and programming is where the focus should be (pictures size, php and sql funcions...), and if that is done right you'll see no big difference between compressed and non-compressed content. You shouldn't be worried to much about compression.This post has been edited by stjepan: Jan 2 2011, 12:01 PM |
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