file_exists() is too slow in PHP. Can anyone suggest a faster alternative?

Question

When displaying images on our website, we check if the file exists with a call to file_exists(). We fall back to a dummy image if the file was missing.

Howe

Answer 1

Use absolute paths! Depending on your include_path setting PHP checks all(!) these dirs if you check relative file paths! You might unset include_path temporarily before checking the existence.

realpath() does the same but I don't know if it is faster.

But file access I/O is always slow. A hard disk access IS slower than calculating something in the processor, normally.

Answer 2

Benchmarks with PHP 5.6:

Existing File:

0.0012969970 : stream_resolve_include_path + include  
0.0013520717 : file_exists + include  
0.0013728141 : @include  

Invalid File:

0.0000281333 : file_exists + include  
0.0000319480 : stream_resolve_include_path + include  
0.0001471042 : @include  

Invalid Folder:

0.0000281333 : file_exists + include  
0.0000360012 : stream_resolve_include_path + include  
0.0001239776 : @include  

Code:

// microtime(true) is less accurate.
function microtime_as_num($microtime){
  $time = array_sum(explode(' ', $microtime));
  return $time;
}

function test_error_suppression_include ($file) {
  $x = 0;
  $x = @include($file);
  return $x;
}

function test_file_exists_include($file) {
  $x = 0;
  $x = file_exists($file);
  if ($x === true) {
    include $file;
  }
  return $x;
}

function test_stream_resolve_include_path_include($file) {
  $x = 0;
  $x = stream_resolve_include_path($file);
  if ($x !== false) {
    include $file;
  }
  return $x;
}

function run_test($file, $test_name) {
  echo $test_name . ":\n";
  echo str_repeat('=',strlen($test_name) + 1) . "\n";

  $results = array();
  $dec = 10000000000; // digit precision as a multiplier

  $i = 0;
  $j = 0;
  $time_start = 0;
  $time_end = 0;
  $x = -1;
  $time = 0;

  $time_start = microtime();
  $x= test_error_suppression_include($file);
  $time_end = microtime();
  $time = microtime_as_num($time_end) - microtime_as_num($time_start);

  $results[$time*$dec] = '@include';

  $i = 0;
  $j = 0;
  $time_start = 0;
  $time_end = 0;
  $x = -1;
  $time = 0;

  $time_start = microtime();
  $x= test_stream_resolve_include_path_include($file);
  $time_end = microtime();
  $time = microtime_as_num($time_end) - microtime_as_num($time_start);

  $results[$time * $dec] = 'stream_resolve_include_path + include';

  $i = 0;
  $j = 0;
  $time_start = 0;
  $time_end = 0;
  $x = -1;
  $time = 0;

  $time_start = microtime();
  $x= test_file_exists_include($file);
  $time_end = microtime();
  $time = microtime_as_num($time_end) - microtime_as_num($time_start);

  $results[$time * $dec ] = 'file_exists + include';

  ksort($results, SORT_NUMERIC);

  foreach($results as $seconds => $test) {
    echo number_format($seconds/$dec,10) . ' : ' . $test . "\n";
  }
  echo "\n\n";
}

run_test($argv[1],$argv[2]);

Command line Execution:

php test.php '/path/to/existing_but_empty_file.php' 'Existing File'  
php test.php '/path/to/non_existing_file.php' 'Invalid File'  
php test.php '/path/invalid/non_existing_file.php' 'Invalid Folder'  

Answer 3

file_exists() should be a very inexpensive operation. Note too that file_exists builds its own cache to help with performance.

See: http://php.net/manual/en/function.file-exists.php

Answer 4

I don't exactly know what you want to do, but you could just let the client handle it.

Answer 5

You could do a cronjob to periodically create a list of images and store them in DB/file/BDB/...

Every half an hour should be fine, but be sure to create an interface to reset cache in case of file addition/delete.

And then, it's also easy to run find . -mmin -30 -print0 on the shell and add new files.

Answer 6

I find 1/2ms per call very, very affordable. I don't think there are much faster alternatives around, as the file functions are very close to the lower layers that handle file operations.

You could however write a wrapper to file_exists() that caches results into a memcache or similar facility. That should reduce the time to next to nothing in everyday use.