php Includes in websites

[Glen]

When i first started my company site i never used php includes and used to have to change over 50 pages if i wanted to add a new site-wide link in my footer.

I then moved on to a couple, now on my new design I'm up to 5 php includes on every page. This basically just allows me to update all areas of the site (not the specific page content) just by updating 1 file.

Do people think there are any issues using a lot of includes or do you think its a good idea? And do you use them yourself?

P.S. Im talking about this:
<?php include("http://www.domain.com/includes/footer.php") ?>

[Blazingpie]

includes are a life-saver, very handy. I use them all the time. only thing to remember is that if you implement a lot of them, especially if an include file has includes, you might end up with conflicts as the same include could be included twice or more.

Thus, require_once() is a brilliant way to prevent this. Its saved my butt tons of times :)

[Glen]

awesome, just making sure it didn't slow down pages too much etc

I'm quite proud of myself as im no website designer ;)

[Blazingpie]

awesome, just making sure it didn't slow down pages too much etc

the include command itself wont slow anything down. the code in the included file is another story, though...

[Chatmaster]

I honestly cannot see you designing a site in any other way Glen. Includes are essential for any person to frequently update and mintain their sites.

[alex]

every include opens a new file pointer in your os. But if your traffic is at the the level where this is an issue then you're running an accelerator anyway. Require once is a touch slower but usually worth it. Beats updating a world of files :-)