Structure Question

[xcandiottix]

I'm currently working on a site that has about 4 separate panels on the page that all use an include to populate. Each include is interacting with the database and I'm thinking that it might congest the databse to have each panel connecting to the same data base and getting data when the page loads.

 

I was wondering if it would be good practice to take all the connections and functions and put them on a 5th include at the top of the page. This way the connections and functions would be available to each include.

 

Is this a good idea? Will it be a problem for the 4 includes to ask the php function list include for data? Is it better to just let each include contain only the code it needs?

 

Also, say I have 20 functions on the php include and one site page only needs to use 1 function. Would the php function include still loop thru and connect to the database for all 20 functions just because it is included or will it only use the bandwidth needed to execute the 1 function it is being asked to use?

 

Hope that's not over confusing.

Thanks!