lol, so I started moving the output of Rhubarb's PHP scripts from HTML (eww) to XML (*scream*). XML is, by nature, a bitch to work with. And my benchmarks show that there wasn't any performance gains from converting the forums, though the XML output is like 1/3 the size of the HTML output (which is really handy).

The only real good thing was that it really helped refactor the code, since the PHP only handles the raw data processing, and all the formatting is left to the XSL scripts on the client. Let's take a look at before-and-after (at the cost of breaking the margins of my journal):

BEFORE:
?>

"login.php">Main Page | "discuss.php">Forum Index



"post">
="forum_reply">
"hidden" name="post" value="">
"hidden" name="spam" value="pls">
"0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
Subject:"text" name="sub" size="18" class="txt">
Name:"text" name="nam" size="18" class="txt">
Email:"text" name="lnk" size="18" class="txt">

"msg" cols="40" rows="5">

"submit" value="Post" class="btn">



"0" width="75%">

function output_post( $reply, $post_id, $post_time, $post_sub, $post_nam, $post_lnk, $post_msg ) {
?>

"0" cellspacing="0" width="100%" class="forum_post">


echo( "$post_sub " );
if( $post_lnk != "" ) {
if ( substr($post_lnk,0,7) != "http://" ) $prefix="mailto:";
echo( "by $post_nam" );
}
else echo( " by $post_nam " ); ?>
"right">if( $reply ) { ?>"discuss.php?post=">Reply

"r", $post_time ); ?>

"3">







}

function output_topic_head( $post_id, $post_last, $post_sub, $post_nam, $post_cnt, $post_msg ) {
if ( $post_sub == "" ) $post_sub = "(No Subject)";
?>
class="forum_topic">

"discuss.php?post="> by
replies

}

if ( $post_id == 0 ) {
// output thread table or something
$query = "SELECT * FROM forum WHERE thread=0 ORDER BY lastpost DESC LIMIT $FRONT_PAGE_POST_VIEW";
$result = mysql_query( $query, $link )
or $error .= "MySQL query failed - couldn't fetch page content. ($query)
";

while ( $line = mysql_fetch_array( $result ) ) {
output_topic_head( $line['id'], $line['lastpost'], $line['subject'], $line['name'],
$line['replycount'], $line['body'] );
}

mysql_free_result( $result );

} else {

mysql_free_result( $result );

$query = "SELECT * FROM forum WHERE thread=$post_id OR id=$post_id ORDER BY id";
$result = mysql_query( $query, $link )
or $error .= "MySQL error - couldn't fetch thread contents. ($query)
";

while ( $line = mysql_fetch_array( $result, MYSQL_ASSOC ) ) {
output_post( $reply, $line['id'], $line['time'], $line['subject'], $line['name'],
$line['link'], $line['body'] );
}

mysql_free_result( $result );
}
?>



"FF0000">
"0000FF">



AFTER:
" );
echo( "" . $line['name'] . "" );
echo( "" . $line['subject'] . "" );
echo( "" . $line['replycount'] . "" );
echo( "" );
}

mysql_free_result( $result );

echo( "" );

}
else {
// display thread.
echo( "" );
echo( "$post_id" );

$query = "SELECT * FROM forum WHERE thread=$post_id OR id=$post_id ORDER BY id";
$result = mysql_query( $query, $link )
or die( "Query failed: $query: " . mysql_error() );

while ( $line = mysql_fetch_array( $result, MYSQL_ASSOC ) ) {
echo( "" );
echo( "" . $line['id'] . "" );
echo( "" . $line['name'] . "" );
echo( "" . $line['subject'] . "" );
echo( "" . $line['time'] . "" );
echo( "" . date( "r", $line['time'] ) . "" );
if ( $line['link'] ) {
if ( substr( $line['link'],0,7 ) != "http://" ) $prefix="mailto:";
else $prefix = "";
echo( "$prefix" . $line['link'] . "" );
} // don't output this node if there isn't a link.
echo( " . $line['body'] . "]]>" );
echo( "" );
}

mysql_free_result( $result );

echo( "" );
}

echo( '' );

mysql_close( $link );
?>


Hurr. Time to figure out the XML layout for the rest of the stuff :3