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Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2020 20:25:20 -0500
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To: Rowan Tommins <rowan.collins@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Initializing constants once, with code?
From: mike@newclarity.net (Mike Schinkel)

> On Jan 6, 2020, at 5:52 PM, Rowan Tommins <rowan.collins@gmail.com> =
wrote:
>=20
> On 06/01/2020 21:01, Mike Schinkel wrote:
>>> On Jan 6, 2020, at 5:56 AM, Robert Hickman <robehickman@gmail.com> =
wrote:
>>>=20
>>> Would it be worth expanding the ideas of programmatic constant
>>> definition into a more general compile-time code execution approach?
>> That would certainly be interesting.  I do not know enough what is =
possible there to opine.
>>=20
>> It it were possible that might be the best of all worlds.
>>=20
>> Anyone with experience in that area able to comment?
>=20
> Isn't that the same as pre-processors, which elicited this response =
when I mentioned them before:

As I said it my most recent other reply I said I view pre-processors as =
text substitution. But you might have meant something different than =
text substitution?

What I think Robert was referring to =E2=80=94 at least to me =E2=80=94 =
was a form of pre-loading or recompiling into some form that could be =
referenced by the normal code, not an approach that would generate a new =
.PHP file. Something that can be linked via symbols at runtime.=20

Maybe something similar to preloading in PHP 7.4, but accessible by the =
developer like .htacess is accessible to the developer, vs. just =
accessible to the system administrator: =
https://stitcher.io/blog/preloading-in-php-74

But I don't want to fixate on my definitions; whatever we call them is =
fine as long as we both understand what we are talking about.

> Parse the code to an AST, allowing function calls with literal =
arguments wherever a literal value would normally be allowed. Find all =
function calls to something in the MACRO namespace, evaluate them, and =
substitute the result into the AST. Then write the modified AST to a new =
PHP file, and deploy that to your server.

It is the writing of the new PHP file that I think would be a =
problematic.  Again, from my other reply, such approaches are not =
composible and that is my objection to them.

-Mike
P.S. Please tell me you are not the guy who wrote Pre from =
preprocess.io, are you?  :-o=