Evaluate count() once per loop instead of once per iteration

[mukeshpanchal27]

Trac ticket: https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/65811

Use of AI Tools

AI assistance: Yes
Tool(s): Claude
Model(s): Opus 5
Used for: Initial code skeleton and test suggestions; final implementation and tests were reviewed and edited by me.

---

This Pull Request is for code review only. Please keep all other discussion in the Trac ticket. Do not merge this Pull Request. See GitHub Pull Requests for Code Review in the Core Handbook for more details.

[github-actions]

Test using WordPress Playground

The changes in this pull request can previewed and tested using a WordPress Playground instance.

WordPress Playground is an experimental project that creates a full WordPress instance entirely within the browser.

Some things to be aware of

• All changes will be lost when closing a tab with a Playground instance.
• All changes will be lost when refreshing the page.
• A fresh instance is created each time the link below is clicked.
• Every time this pull request is updated, a new ZIP file containing all changes is created. If changes are not reflected in the Playground instance,
  it's possible that the most recent build failed, or has not completed. Check the list of workflow runs to be sure.

For more details about these limitations and more, check out the Limitations page in the WordPress Playground documentation.

Test this pull request with WordPress Playground.

[github-actions]

The following accounts have interacted with this PR and/or linked issues. I will continue to update these lists as activity occurs. You can also manually ask me to refresh this list by adding the props-bot label.

Core Committers: Use this line as a base for the props when committing in SVN:

Props mukesh27, westonruter, afercia.

To understand the WordPress project's expectations around crediting contributors, please review the Contributor Attribution page in the Core Handbook.

[afercia]

Thanks for your PR @mukeshpanchal27
It appears Claude missed something here. I would suggest to consider moving the call to count() outside the loop entirely. With the current approach, for example:

for ( $index = 0, $script_count = count( $scripts ); $index < $script_count; $index++ ) {

there's still one function call per loop iteration, it was just moved to the initialization part.

Instead, moving the count() outside the loop entirely and storing the result in a variable:

• Eliminates any function calls during loop iterations.
• Calls count() only once, before the loop starts.
• Is more readable and clear in intent.
• Provides maximum performance benefit.

$script_count = count( $scripts );
for ( $index = 0; $index < $script_count; $index++ ) {
    ...

[mukeshpanchal27]

@afercia Thanks for the feedback it's not addressed. Please take a look when you have moment.

[westonruter]

Suggestion to use range() instead for these instances.

[afercia]

I don't consider this to be clever code.

In my opinion it's always better to prioritize a more readable and clearer syntax.
It's WordPress. Not a Symfony / Laravel contributor audience. We should always take into consideration the WordPress audience and prioritize ease of contribution.

This whole conversation is a sign that sometimes some syntax isn't immediately understandable. When there's a simpler option, we should use it. In my case, it's in part because of my limitations and that's OK. But I'm not the only one who may find the proposed syntax less readable and understandable.

Between these two options:

Option A:

for ( $index = 0, $length = count( $modules ); $index < $length; $index++ ) {
	// Loop body
}

Option B:

$length = count( $modules );
for ( $index = 0; $index < $length; $index++ ) {
    // Loop body
}

To me, Option B is way clearer.

Not to mention the example with $spacing_sizes_count / $spacing_sizes_length variables names, which is terrible to read:

for ( $spacing_sizes_count = 0, $spacing_sizes_length = count( $spacing_sizes ); $spacing_sizes_count < $spacing_sizes_length; $spacing_sizes_count++ ) {
    // Loop body
}

That said, I'm not married with either of the two syntaxes. I'm still convinced we should strive for simplicity though.

[westonruter]

@afercia nevertheless, assigning count to a variable in the initializer is standard. It's even on the PHP docs page for for:

So I think it is perfectly standard and should be considered simple.