Roadsend PHP

From Encoresoup - The Ultimate Guide to Free/Open Source Software

Roadsend PHP is an open source implementation of the PHP language. It includes an interpreter, native compiler, and step debugger . Roadsend Compiler can be used to build online web applications with FastCGI, offline web applications with an embedded web server (using the included "MicroServer"), desktop GUI applications with PHP-GTK, libraries, and console applications. It is known to build on Linux, Windows (using mingw), Mac OS X, and FreeBSD though it should build on most POSIX-like platforms. The Windows release includes the Roadsend Studio IDE.

Originally developed by Roadsend Inc., it has been in development since 2002, and was released as an open source project in 2007.

The Roadsend PHP compiler is available under the terms of the GNU General Public License. The Roadsend PHP runtime environment and extension libraries are available under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License.

Contents 1 Relation to Zend PHP 2 Native compilation 3 Roadsend Studio IDE 4 Compatibility 5 State of functionality 6 External links

[edit] Relation to Zend PHP

Roadsend PHP is a completely independent implementation of the PHP language and runtime environment, and is not based on the original implementation (using the Zend Engine). "Zend PHP" is not required, and is not used in any way, by Roadsend PHP. Roadsend is implemented in Bigloo Scheme and C.

As there is no formal specification of PHP, the Zend implementation serves to define a de facto standard against which Roadsend PHP is developed.

[edit] Native compilation

Roadsend PHP compiler is unique among PHP "compilers" because it is not a byte code compiler, script encoder, or embedder. It compiles PHP source code to native machine code. It achieves this by compiling to bigloo scheme, which in turn is compiled to C, then to machine code. The entire process is completely integrated and transparent to the end user.

In addition to compiling, Roadsend PHP can also interpret PHP source directly.

[edit] Roadsend Studio IDE

Included with the Windows release is the Roadsend Studio IDE. It provides a syntax highlighting editor, project manager, step debugger and compiling and interpreting of projects (including GUI apps) from within the IDE. It automatically deploys a finished project to a directory (included supporting libraries), ready for packaging. It examines your code as you type, has early syntax error recognition, auto method and property completion and auto parameter help.

Roadsend Studio is current available only for Windows. A rewrite of the Roadsend Studio IDE is in progress using the cross-platform PyQt framework.

[edit] Compatibility

Roadsend PHP aims to be syntactically and semantically compatible with Zend PHP whenever possible. The current version is compatible with PHP 4. PHP 5 compatibility is under development, with some support available in the latest source release.

Only a small (but most popular) subset of the current Zend PHP extensions are currently implemented. These include:

• Standard Library
• PCRE
• MySQL
• XML (libXML 2 based)
• SQLite 3
• ODBC
• CURL
• pcc-win (a custom, windows only extension with access to the windows API)
• PHP-GTK 1
• PHP-GTK 2 (in development)

[edit] State of functionality

Even with the smaller subset of extensions and (currently) incomplete PHP 5 support, Roadsend PHP is sophisticated enough to compile and run many popular PHP 4 packages such as phpBB and phpMyAdmin. For example, the Roadsend Support Forums run a compiled version of phpBB through FastCGI.

[edit] External links

• Roadsend PHP Home Site
• Roadsend PHP Community Development Site
• Roadsend PHP Support Forums