One of the more common errors thrown by the WordPress Core files are the E_STRICT errors:
is_a(): Deprecated. Please use the instanceof operator
These errors are somewhat unique. The instanceof operator was not introduced until PHP version 5.0 and as of version 5.3 is_a is no longer deprecated. Since is_a works in all PHP versions >= 4.2 (and in fact, in some versions instanceof can throw a fatal error), should these errors simply be ignored?
Other than keeping these errors from cluttering up error logs when error reporting is configured to include them, might there be a good reason for changing the WordPress files to use instanceof instead? Does an error being thrown slow things down even when error reporting is off?
To test this, I put together a simple benchmark script and ran several variations of it. In all tests I turned off display errors, created an emptyClass, assigned an istance of that class to a variable, set an iteration variable to 4400000 (4 million 400 thousand), and initialized some variables to hold the conditional tests' results. I then created 2 test blocks, one with error reporting on, the other off. In each of these were 3 test blocks where the time limit was set to 120 seconds, microtime was assigned to a start variable, a for loop with a conditional test was used, microtime was assigned to a stop variable, start time subtracted from stop time, and the resulting values displayed to the screen.
I used 3 conditional tests in ternary form, in most tests using a variable to hold the string "emptyClass" and assigning either the string "true" or "false". But in other tests, I used the string in the conditional [test runs 5,6], and in the last assigned boolean true or false [test run 6]. In some tests I assigned a different emptyClass to "foo" [test runs 3,4]. I also changed the sequence of the error reporting "on" and "off" blocks a few times.
The conditional tests used were:
$isa = (is_a($foo, 'emptyClass')) ? true : false;
$iof = ($foo instanceof emptyClass) ? true : false;
$gc = (get_class($foo) == 'emptyClass') ? true : false;
The results were:
isa: true isa_off_run_time: 100.178678036 isa: true isa_off_run_time: 99.1540658474 isa: false isa_off_run_time: 99.960310936 isa: false isa_off_run_time: 103.339380026 isa: true isa_off_run_time: 106.143660069 isa: 1 isa_off_run_time: 105.840899944 iof: true iof_off_run_time: 35.3434741497 iof: true iof_off_run_time: 35.5949220657 iof: false iof_off_run_time: 35.5492649078 iof: false iof_off_run_time: 35.5479259491 iof: true iof_off_run_time: 34.432945013 iof: 1 iof_off_run_time: 33.126625061 gc: true gc_off_run_time: 33.4457361698 gc: true gc_off_run_time: 33.5602648258 gc: false gc_off_run_time: 33.3188569546 gc: false gc_off_run_time: 34.7413768768 gc: true gc_off_run_time: 33.0190939903 gc: 1 gc_off_run_time: 31.8450849056 isa: true isa_on_run_time: 102.209348202 isa: true isa_on_run_time: 102.416124105 isa: false isa_on_run_time: 100.420098066 isa: false isa_on_run_time: 102.395892143 isa: true isa_on_run_time: 106.603455782 isa: 1 isa_on_run_time: 104.104444027 iof: true iof_on_run_time: 35.7016470432 iof: true iof_on_run_time: 35.5722339153 iof: false iof_on_run_time: 35.5262870789 iof: false iof_on_run_time: 35.2299501896 iof: true iof_on_run_time: 34.4370470047 iof: 1 iof_on_run_time: 32.9595680237 gc: true gc_on_run_time: 33.9093399048 gc: true gc_on_run_time: 33.8212268353 gc: false gc_on_run_time: 33.8323700428 gc: false gc_on_run_time: 33.9559469223 gc: true gc_on_run_time: 32.9235389233 gc: 1 gc_on_run_time: 31.7332019806
As can be seen, I found no appreciable difference between the error reporting off and error reporting on run times. However, is_a takes roughly 3 times as long as instanceof, and get_class is somewhat faster than instanceof.
Does this matter? Some files that call is_a run only very seldom, and some may not get called at all depending on your blog set up and your blogging habits. But, as we shall see, at other times is_a is called many times.
These tests provide only a very limited result set. Because of variations due to other running system processes, and the changes made to the script between test runs, they should be interpreted with caution. If you care to, you should run similar tests on your own server with your version of PHP.
Although the error message suggests using the instanceof operator insread of is_a, the instanceof operator was not introduced until PHP version 5.0, and as mentioned, in some cases can throw a fatal error. get_class however, was introduced in PHP version 4.0 and also appears to have the fastest run time of the 3 conditionals, even if it is slightly more verbose.
I have left a comment regarding this on the Trac ticket core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/10264
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