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Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2020 12:13:44 +0200
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To: Nikita Popov <nikita.ppv@gmail.com>
Cc: PHP Internals List <internals@lists.php.net>
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Resolve fallback-to-root-namespace in preloaded implementations
From: nicolas.grekas@gmail.com (Nicolas Grekas)

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Hello Nikita,

with preloading and Composer, we don't need anymore to consider autoloading
>> for functions and/or constants. The reason is that basically Composer is
>> already doing a great job at loading functions: just give it a list of
>> files and it will ensure they are included all the time. Actually,
>> Composer
>> is just an example, all similar "require all the time" strategies work.
>>
>> The drawback of this approach used to be that requiring a bunch of
>> (potentially unused) files could be costly. But now that we have
>> preloading, this cost is zero. As such, autoloading functions/constants
>> would serve no purpose.
>>
>> Then, we periodically have discussions about the rules for namespace
>> resolution of functions/constants. The fallback-to-root-namespace has no
>> measurable performance overhead - the cache is very effective. Yet, Nikita
>> has stated a few times that knowing the type of the arguments of the
>> function being called helps the engine a bit. With JIT, this might be
>> (/become) more important (is that correct, Dmitry and/or Nikita?)
>>
>> I'm thus wondering: could we resolve the fallback-to-root-namespace rule
>> at
>> preload time, for all preloaded implementations? For runtime-loaded code,
>> we would keep the current behavior.
>>
>> In practice, this means that during development (when preloading is not
>> used), we would preserve all the hackability that the rule provides (PHP
>> being a hackable engine is a big PRO, here, this can help e.g. testing a
>> lot). The fallback-to-root-namespace is a wise pragmatic rule that serves
>> the language well IMHO. But in prod, in full-perf mode (aka when
>> preloading
>> is enabled), this proposal would pave the way for better performance with
>> JIT, if confirmed.
>>
>> WDYT?
>>
>> Nicolas
>>
>> PS: I fear I would be unable to implement anything related to this
>> proposal
>> so I'm just sharing the idea to see if it could be interesting.
>>
>
> Hey Nicolas,
>
> I think this is something we should consider. Maybe not as default
> behavior, but at least under an ini setting. Basically, any unqualified
> call would get resolved to a global call or a namespaced call based on
> which functions are declarated at preloading time.
>

An ini setting would work for me - I'd enable it all the time when using
preloading.


> I see one potential problem. If you have something like
>
> namespace Foo;
> if (true) {
>     function strlen($x) {}
> }
> strlen("foo");
>
> then depending on how the preloading is performed, PHP will not be aware
> of the "Foo\strlen" function. Specifically if opcache_compile_file()
> preloading is used, because it does not execute code. If "require" based
> preloading is used, this is not a problem.
>

I see this as an inherent limitation to using opcache_compile_file(). Class
aliases can lead to similar differences.
Not something I would care about, especially if there is an ini setting to
opt-in for the proposed behavior.

I'm unfortunately entirely reliant on you or someone else that has the
skills for implementing this...

Thanks for your answer and your interest in the proposal!

Nicolas

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