bcompiler

&reftitle.intro; &warn.experimental; Bcompiler was written for two reasons: To encode some classes in a proprietary PHP application To enable the production of php-gtk applications that could be used on client desktops, without the need for a php.exe. To do the feasibility study for a PHP to C converter The first of these goals is achieved using the bcompiler_write_header, bcompiler_write_class, bcompiler_write_footer, bcompiler_read, and bcompiler_load functions. The bytecode files can be written as either uncompressed or plain. The bcompiler_load reads a bzip compressed bytecode file, which tends to be 1/3 of the size of the original file. To create EXE type files, bcompiler has to be used with a modified sapi file or a version of PHP which has been compiled as a shared library. In this scenario, bcompiler reads the compressed bytecode from the end of the exe file. bcompiler is unlikely to improve performance very much, as it only bypasses the compiler stage of the PHP running process and replaces it with the import process in bcompiler. It also does not do any bytecode optimization, this could be added in the future. In terms of code protection, it is safe to say that it would be impossible to recreate the exact source code that it was built from, and without the accompanying source code comments. It would effectively be useless to use the bcompiler bytecodes to recreate and modify a class. However it is possible to retrieve data from a bcompiled bytecode file - so don't put your private passwords or anything in it.

&reference.bcompiler.configure;

If you have comments, bugfixes, enhancements or want to help developing this beast, you can drop me a mail at alan_k@php.net. Any help is very welcome.

&reference.bcompiler.functions;