Programming PHP

Example 13-6. Output buffering to handle errors (continued)
ob_start( );
?>
Results!
Here are the results of your search:
In Example 13-6, after we start the element, we register the error handler and
begin output buffering. If we cannot connect to the database (or if anything else goes
wrong in the subsequent PHP code), the heading and table are not displayed.
Instead, the user sees only the error message, as shown in Figure 13-1. If no errors
are raised by the PHP code, however, the user simply sees the HTML page.
Figure 13-1. Error message instead of the buffered HTML
Performance Tuning
Before thinking much about performance tuning, get your code working. Once you
have working code, you can then locate the slow bits. If you try to optimize your
code while writing it, you’ll discover that optimized code tends to be more difficult
to read and to take more time to write. If you spend that time on a section of code
that isn’t actually causing a problem, that’s time that was wasted, especially when it
comes time to maintain that code, and you can no longer read it.
Once you get your code working, you may find that it needs some optimization.
Optimizing code tends to fall within one of two areas: shortening execution times
and lessening memory requirements.
308 | Chapter 13: Application Techniques
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