Advanced PHP Programming

Chapter 17. Application Benchmarks: Testing an Entire Application

Profiling is an exhaustive process. A profiler needs to be set up, multiple profile runs need to be performed, and tedious analysis often needs to be performed. For a large or complex script, a profiling/tuning cycle can easily take days to complete thoroughly. This is fine.

Profiling is like a detective game, and taking the time to probe the guts of a page and all its requisite libraries can be an interesting puzzle. But if you have 1,000 different PHP pages, where do you start? How do you diagnose the health of your application?

On the flip side, you have load testing. The project you have invested the past six months to developing is nearing completion. Your boss tells you that ...