php report is very slow and crashes in firefox - php

Question

I have a report that runs and returns 366 records, each containing a thumbnail that is 104 x 80 px. The issue is that the report runs very slowley even though I increased the memory size.
ini_set('memory_limit', '128M');
ini_set('max_execution_time','600');
After writing the SQL query I generate the table items here
generate_table_items($query_all_items);
This then runs through and checks for the image in the columns
function generate_table_items($query){
$columns = array();
$resultset = array();
$scriptname = array();
$scriptname[0] = "/reports/all_items.php";
$scriptname[1] = "/reports/all_items_by_value.php";
$columncount = 0;
$rowcost = 0;
$rowsale = 0;
while ($row = mssql_fetch_assoc($query)) {
if (empty($columns)) {
$columns = array_keys($row);
echo '<tr><th scope="col" >'.implode('</th><th scope="col" >',get_column_name($columns)).'</th></tr>';
$columncount = sizeof(array_keys($row));
}
$resultset[] = $row;
echo '<tr><td>'.implode('</td><td>',report_image_check($row)).'</td></tr>';
if(in_array($_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME'],$scriptname)){
$colspan = (count($columns)-2);
echo "<tr><th scope='row'>Documents</th><td colspan='$colspan' >";
$PKID = $row['ID'];
if($row['SumOfTotalCost'] || $row['SumOfSalePrice']){
$rowcost += $row['SumOfTotalCost'];
$rowsale += $row['SumOfSalePrice'];
$get_total = true;
}
$query_docs = mssql_query("select documents.* from dbo.documents where documents.Antiquities_id = $PKID") or die ('get docs query failed ' . mssql_get_last_message());
while($row_docs = mssql_fetch_assoc($query_docs)){
$document = "../documents/" . $row_docs['document'];
echo "<a href='$document' title='opens in a new window' target='_blank' >" . $row_docs['document'] . "</a> | ";
} // End while (list docs)
mssql_free_result($query_docs);
echo "</td></tr>";
myflush();
} // End if all items and all items by value report
} // End While
echo '<tr>';
for($i=0;$i < $columncount-4;$i++){
echo '<td> </td>';
}
echo '<td>Total Cost '. $rowcost.'</td>';
echo '<td>Total Sale '. $rowsale.'</td>';
echo '<td>Total Calculated Difference '. ($rowsale-$rowcost).'</td></tr>';
} // End function
function get_column_name($columns){
$newcol = array();
$scriptname = array();
$scriptname[0] = "/reports/all_items.php";
$scriptname[1] = "/reports/all_items_by_value.php";
$thecount = 0;
foreach($columns as $col) {
if($thecount == 1 && in_array($_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME'],$scriptname)) {
// Don't list the PK
} else {
$newcol[] = '<img id="'.$col.'" src="../images/icons/arrow_down.png" alt="click to sort by" onclick="sortby(\''.$col.'\');" />' . $col;
}
$thecount++;
}
/*if(in_array($_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME'],$scriptname)){
$newcol[] = "documents";
}*/
return $newcol;
}
function report_image_check($row){
global $base_url, $uploaded_images_folder;
$newrow = array();
$imageext = array();
$imageext[0] = ".jpg";
$imageext[1] = ".png";
$imageext[2] = ".gif";
$imageext[3] = ".tiff";
$scriptname = array();
$scriptname[0] = "/reports/all_items.php";
$scriptname[1] = "/reports/all_items_by_value.php";
$PKID = 0;
$thecount = 0;
foreach($row as $rn) {
if(in_array(strtolower(substr($rn,-4)),$imageext)){
$small_img_ext = substr($rn,-4);
$small_img = substr($rn,0,strripos($rn,"."));
$small_img = $small_img . '_140_105' . $small_img_ext;
$newrow[] = '<a href="' . $base_url . $uploaded_images_folder . '/' . $small_img . '" title="click to zoom on image" target="_blank" ><img src="' . $base_url . $uploaded_images_folder . '/' . $rn . '" alt="" width="50px" height="50px" /></a>';
} elseif($thecount == 1 && in_array($_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME'],$scriptname)) {
$PKID = $rn;
} elseif($thecount == 2 && in_array($_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME'],$scriptname)) {
$newrow[] = "<a href='../index.php?template=10&PKID=$PKID' target='_blank' >$PKID (click to view)</a>";
} else {
$newrow[] = $rn;
}
$thecount++;
myflush();
}
/*if (in_array($_SERVER['SCRIPT_NAME'],$scriptname)) {
$newrow[] = "<a href='#&PKID=$PKID' target='_blank' >Documents (click to view)</a>";
}*/
return $newrow;
} // End function
//// Flushing function
function myflush(){
ob_implicit_flush();
ignore_user_abort();
}
Can anyone see an issue with this code or see why it would take so long or why it crashes firefox? Would printing to pdf function work better?

Answer 1

It'll take a long time because you're nesting SQL queries... executing a second SQL query for every result that has been returned by the first query.... Doing a single query with a JOIN should help performance significantly.
Printing to PDF would almost certainly be slower: you'd eithe rneed a lot of code to position everything correctly in the report yourself, or to use one of the libraries that can take HTML and render it to a PDF (as you're already generating HTML anyway at the moment, this would be additional processing)