Performance: is better a node_load or a direct SQL query ?

[Michel Morelli]

Hi all. I have a content type with 15+ fields. In some situations I need
to retrieve only 3 fields.

So, is better (perfomance, security, portability, etc etc) a call to
node_load() function or a direct SQL query on the right table ?

M.

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[Pierre Rineau]

node_load() should be better in most cases because it uses an internal
cache to make sure a node is never loaded twice.

This ensures no SQL query repetition, that are often the worst nightmare
for performance.

Pierre.

Le jeudi 02 juillet 2009 à 12:20 +0200, Michel Morelli a écrit :
> Hi all. I have a content type with 15+ fields. In some situations I need
> to retrieve only 3 fields.
>
> So, is better (perfomance, security, portability, etc etc) a call to
> node_load() function or a direct SQL query on the right table ?
>
> M.
>

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[Damien Cirotteau-5]

Or you can use a view that return only the required fields. It is a
good compromise between custom query and full node load.

In term of performance, nothing will beat custom SQL query. But this
is worst in term of maintainance and portability. If you do direct SQL
query be sure to use the CCK API to get the name of the tables and
fields. Otherwise you will be in trouble if the CCK tables structure
change (which can happen very easely if you decide to share a field
among several content types or set it to multiple *after* you have
written your own queries).

Damien Cirotteau
Rue89
http://www.rue89.com
[phone]
dcirotteau@...
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On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 12:20 PM, Michel Morelli<michel@...> wrote:

> Hi all. I have a content type with 15+ fields. In some situations I need to
> retrieve only 3 fields.
> So, is better (perfomance, security, portability, etc etc) a call to
> node_load() function or a direct SQL query on the right table ?
>
> M.
>
> --
> Michel 'ZioBudda' Morelli                       michel@...
> Consulenza sistemistica in ambito OpenSource.
> Sviluppo applicazioni web dinamiche (LAMP+Ajax)
> Telefono: 0200619074
> Telefono Cell: [phone] --  Fax: [phone]
>
> http://www.ziobudda.net                         ICQ: 58351764
>  http://www.ziobuddalabs.it                      Skype: zio_budda
> http://www.ziodrupal.net                        MSN: michel@...
>                                                                  JABBER:
> michel@...
>
> --
> [ Drupal support list | http://lists.drupal.org/ ]
>

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[Pierre Rineau]

Note: you must care about the context your function is executed. If it's
an AJAX callback, you might want to do your own query, because there is
no way your node might be loaded twice.

But, if you are executing this function in normal Drupal execution flow,
you have to use node_load() because there is a lot of cases in which
your node will be loaded more than once (views, some custom blocks,
access checks on url, etc...).

Pierre.

Le jeudi 02 juillet 2009 à 12:28 +0200, Pierre Rineau a écrit :

> node_load() should be better in most cases because it uses an internal
> cache to make sure a node is never loaded twice.
>
> This ensures no SQL query repetition, that are often the worst nightmare
> for performance.
>
> Pierre.
>
> Le jeudi 02 juillet 2009 à 12:20 +0200, Michel Morelli a écrit :
> > Hi all. I have a content type with 15+ fields. In some situations I need
> > to retrieve only 3 fields.
> >
> > So, is better (perfomance, security, portability, etc etc) a call to
> > node_load() function or a direct SQL query on the right table ?
> >
> > M.
> >
>
> --
> [ Drupal support list | http://lists.drupal.org/ ]

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