Borgo San Michele
I didn't know where to post it, because the Off Topics section is not for Icy Phoenix... while this topic is Icy Phoenix related... so if I have posted in the wrong forum, please moderators move this topic
(just kidding of course!).
Well, I'll go straight to the point.
DEF_* files in CH mod are responsible for caching some basics data requested in almost all pages, allowing the system to requests these data directly from cache instead of querying each time the DB. Of course these files should speed up things for highly traficated boards.
The authors decided to place them into the include folder (with CHMOD 666) because phpBB 2 doesn't have an SQL cache.
Since CH in Icy Phoenix is highly modified since its first release, and since Icy Phoenix does have a complex cache system, I have finally decided to remove two (among the three) DEF_* files (the ones for themes and words censor) and reorganize a little bit the third (and most important) one.
The only DEF_* file still in Icy Phoenix is now DEF_TREE and it is responsible for caching important information about the forum index. That file is so important because in phpBB 2 categories, forums, topics and posts tables were not optimized for big boards with many forums and users. This file allows a great gain in speed when viewing forum index or some category / subforum.
phpBB 3 has been totally recoded regarding forums and topics structure (also phpBB 3 has SQL cache): in phpBB 3 tables there are now much more information which reduce the need to use JOIN queries (or queries among several tables), and this is a great improve for any forum or subforum page.
In Icy Phoenix I still don't use the full new phpBB 3 structure for forums and categories, but I do for topics and posts. The objective is to recode even forums and categories tables, but that will be for another future version, not the one still in development.
Back on topic... Icy Phoenix now uses only the cache folder for all things that need to be cached, and many cache settings are now available both in ACP and in constants.php. Icy Phoenix caching system is really complex, but it showed to work fine even in some highly traficated sites, so after months of testing I'm quite happy with it.
I think that the current cache system will be the definitive one for current development version. So after having fixed the bugs in the next coming beta, I will go for RC and then final release.
You don't have to bother anymore about those nasty DEF_* files in include folder...
[Censor]
Georgia
In the Boxes
hampshire
