Test: many classes vs. associative arrays

Does it make any difference when you have multiple classes being instantiated vs. multiple arrays? Note that both are wrapped in an eval to make it fair (another option would be to pre-create all of the classes, but this is more illustrative.)

Run this test again Return to test menu

Historical Results

Based on (6) saved test runs, The test labeled "arrays" was (on average) the faster by 0.0021 seconds, (0.222% faster)

arrays 100%

classes 99.778%

The arrays test took 0.9555 seconds.
The classes test took 0.9576 seconds.

Nitty-Gritty

Each test case ran 20 random code order iterations consisting of 213,831 loops for a total of 4,276,620 runs.

Line execution difference (0.000000) milliseconds.
Avg difference (0.000) milliseconds per 213,831 loops.
Total difference 2.12 milliseconds for 4,276,620 loops

The iteration variablity for Code 1 was (0.0000) milliseconds and Code 2 was (0.0000) milliseconds. The lower and the closer together there values are the more accurate the results are.

Code

The first test, "classes", was:

$name = 'TestClass' . $GLOBALS['i']++;
eval('
class ' . $name . '
{
	var $x, $y, $z;
}

$data = new ' . $name . '();

$data->x = \'test\';
$data->y = 1;
$data->z = 5.5;');

The second test, "arrays", was:

$name = 'TestArray' . $GLOBALS['i']++;
eval('
$' . $name . ' = array(
	\'x\' => null,
	\'y\' => null,
	\'z\' => null,
);

$' . $name . '[\'x\'] = \'test\';
$' . $name . '[\'y\'] = 1;
$' . $name . '[\'z\'] = 5.5;');

PHP Benchmarks