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Date: Fri, 13 Nov 2015 15:35:52 -0600
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Subject: Support for writing and executing compiled opcode
From: me@stephencoakley.com (Stephen Coakley)

Hello all,

I've been thinking about PHP optimization and distribution, and I would 
like to hear some opinions on introducing a new feature for a future PHP 
7 version. Here's the concept: allow PHP opcode to be both saved after 
parsing a file, and to be loaded and executed, similar to the bcompiler 
extension and the APC bin functions back in the day.

The advantages are clear: libraries and applications could be compiled 
to opcode ahead of time so PHP wouldn't have to compile it again and 
again (assuming you're not already using OPcache).

A new function could be provided to parse a PHP file, but instead of 
executing it, the compiled opcode would be saved to a file. It might 
part of the OPcache extension if it makes sense, and could be called 
opcache_compile_to_file() or something.

Another option would be to add a command-line flag to the interpreter to 
write compiled opcode instead of executing it after parsing.

Another part of the feature would be to enable the interpreter to 
execute compiled opcode scripts directly. This would work for both 
compiled scripts passed to the interpreter, and scripts loaded with 
`include` and `require`. We would probably need to introduce a new file 
extension to specify opcode files. I'd recommend *.phpo or *.phpc.

This is quite similar to Python's ability to execute Python scripts 
compiled to bytecode as *.pyc files. The feature has seen great success 
in Python, mostly for distributing releases of software or deploying to 
a server.

I'm not at this moment planning an RFC, but I'd like to gauge your 
opinions and reactions first.

-- 
Stephen