Are there any best practices for efficiently storing and updating static pages in PHP based on changes in the database?
When dealing with static pages in PHP that need to be updated based on changes in the database, one efficient approach is to use a caching mechanism to store the static pages and update them only when necessary. This can help reduce the load on the server by serving pre-generated static pages instead of querying the database for each request. One common method is to use a timestamp or version number to track changes in the database and invalidate the cached static pages when updates occur.
// Check if the cached static page exists and is up-to-date
if(file_exists('cached_page.html') && filemtime('cached_page.html') >= $last_updated_timestamp) {
// Serve the cached static page
include 'cached_page.html';
} else {
// Generate the static page content from the database
$content = generate_static_page_content_from_database();
// Save the generated content to a cached file
file_put_contents('cached_page.html', $content);
// Serve the newly generated static page
echo $content;
}