[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #20298: Change requires to require_once

[WordPress Trac]

#20298: Change requires to require_once
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 Reporter:  pp3345       |       Owner:
     Type:  enhancement  |      Status:  new
 Priority:  normal       |   Milestone:  Awaiting Review
Component:  General      |     Version:  3.3.1
 Severity:  normal       |  Resolution:
 Keywords:               |
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Comment (by nacin):

 Well, one, require_once() is indeed a performance difference. It's not
 much, but those few lines end up checking include_path and does a hash
 table lookup. The include graph for WordPress is something like 100 files
 so it will definitely be worse for performance, even if barely measurable.

 Additionally, if we change this, we then have to agree to maintain the use
 of require_once always. That kind of commitment (when it doesn't benefit
 us) is difficult to agree to or maintain.

 More importantly, though, I disagree that require_once is an increase in
 code quality. It can hide problems, silly code, and errors; and indicates
 to me a decrease in quality, if anything.

 > Why take a performance hit when none is needed. If the include files get
 moved around, a require_once won't fix that anyway. Always using
 require_once calls is just a bad habit as far as I am concerned. There may
 be a few common files that are prone to multiple inclusion in a complex
 application, but most shouldn't be included multiple times and if you are
 including them multiple times you'd probably want to know about it and not
 just ignore it the way the _once functions do.

 That's directly from Rasmus Lerdorf. Reference:
 http://toys.lerdorf.com/archives/34-Flickr-API-Fun.html#c3019.

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Ticket URL: <http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/20298#comment:4>
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