PHP Research & Evidence-Based Practice 2

Question 1

Which PHP function returns the execution time in microseconds and is commonly used in performance benchmarking research?

Accepted Answer

microtime(true)

Answer

microtime(true) returns the current Unix timestamp as a float including microseconds, making it useful for measuring script execution time.

Question 2

When profiling a PHP application to identify bottlenecks, which tool is specifically designed for PHP and integrates with IDEs like PhpStorm?

Accepted Answer

Xdebug

Answer

Xdebug is a PHP extension that provides debugging and profiling capabilities and integrates directly with IDEs like PhpStorm.

Question 3

Which PHP testing framework method is used to assert that two values are identical (type and value) rather than merely equal?

Accepted Answer

assertSame()

Answer

assertSame() in PHPUnit checks both value and type equality using === comparison, unlike assertEquals() which uses ==.

Question 4

In evidence-based PHP development, what does the term 'code coverage' specifically measure?

Accepted Answer

Percentage of source code executed during tests

Answer

Code coverage measures the percentage of source code lines, branches, or paths that are executed when the test suite runs.

Question 5

Which PHP function can be used to log script errors to a custom file for later analysis?

Accepted Answer

error_log()

Answer

error_log() sends an error message to PHP's error log, a file, or a remote host, depending on the message_type parameter.

PHP - PHP Programming Language Practice Test