PHP Code (modules) included via MySQL database, good idea?
- by ionFish
The main script includes "modules" which add functionality to it. Each module is set up like this:
<?php
//data collection stuff
//(...) approx 80 lines of code
//end data collection
$var1 = 'some data';
$var2 = 'more data';
$var3 = 'other data';
?>
Each module has the same exact variables, just the data collection is different.
I was wondering if it's a reasonable idea to store the module data in MySQL like this:
[database]
|_modules
|_name
|_function (the raw PHP data from above)
|_description
|_author
|_update-url
|_version
|_enabled
...and then include the PHP-data from the database and execute it? Something like, a tab-navigation system at the top of the page for each module name, then inside each of those tabs the page content would function by parsing the database-stored code of the module from the function section.
The purpose would be to save code space (fewer lines), allow for easy updates, and include/exclude modules based on the enabled option. This is how many other web-apps work, some of my own too. But never had I thought about this so deeply. Are there any drawbacks or security risks to this?
