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Date: Sun, 5 Feb 2017 22:05:09 +0000
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Subject: [Discussion] FFI in PHP
From: bowersbros@gmail.com (Alex Bowers)

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Hello All,

I'd like to start a discussion around an FFI RFC

FFI RFC ====== There are many languages that support an FFI implementation.
NodeJS Python C++ Ruby FFI allows you to call a native C function without
requiring the boilerplate of an extension to be written. There are several
benefits to having FFI - Performance - Shareability / Bundling - Common
functionality between languages Performance === Although less pronounced
than the 5.x versions, there is still a performance benefit to having
native C code over PHP code. For example, you could utilise threading
inside of your FFI methods, which PHP does not expose the ability to
do. Shareability
=== If you wish to implement some of your source code in C, the current way
to share it is to build it as an extension. This is cumbersome, and
restricts use-cases such as shared hosting, where the ability to install
your own extensions is probably restricted. However, with FFI, the shared
object can be loaded from any location, and so that restriction is no
longer in place. They could even be distributed via composer. Common
functionality between languages === If you have some complex logic that
needs to be replicated in several languages for whatever reason;
implementing it several times over would lead to uncertain bugs and
technical debt increasing heavily. If you could share the same logic
amongst them all using FFI, then this is no longer an issue. Example === Take
an example of a rust program that takes two numbers in and gives you the
sum of them. ```rust #[no_mangle] pub extern fn add(a: i32, b: i32) -> i32 { a
+ b } ``` with the Cargo.toml file containing: ``` [package] name =
"math" version
= "0.1.0" authors = ["Alex Bowers <bowersbros@gmail.com>"] [dependencies]
[lib] name = "math" crate-type = ["dylib"] ``` `cargo build --release` will
create `.so`, `.dylib`, or `.dll` files depending on your system. These
should be usable within PHP using the exposed functions. ```php $math =
ffi("/path/to/math.so"); $result = $math->add(1, 5); echo $result; //
6 ``` With
the implementation at its most basic level, calling the `add` method with
incorrect parameters would likely cause a segfault. A way around that could
be that the methods are not immediately exposed, but have to be
configured. Something
like: ```php $math = ffi("/path/to/math.so"); $math->add(1, 5); // Throws
RuntimeException, method not configured $math->configure('add', int $a, int
$b); $math->add(1, 5); // 6 $math->add('a', 5); Fatal error: Uncaught
TypeError: Argument 1 passed to add() must be of the type integer, string
given ``` Prior art: === https://pecl.php.net/package/ffi - Last release >
13 years https://github.com/mgdm/MFFI - Not stable, last commit > 1 year,
no releases

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