Pushing Boundaries: Zend Framework 3 and the Future

by Enrico Zimuel, Senior Sofware Engineer
Zend Technologies Ltd

PHP Day, Verona (Italy), 15th May 2015

About me

Enrico Zimuel (@ezimuel), professional developer since 1996. Senior Software Engineer in the R&D department of Zend Technologies, since 2008. Research in computer science at the Informatics Institute of Amsterdam University. Open source contributor and co-author of Apigility and Zend Framework. Co-author of the Italian books PHP Best Practices and Javascript Best Practices. Co-founder of PUG Torino (Italy).

ZF3 in a nutshell

• Emphasis on components
• Focus on HTTP, via PSR-7 and middleware
• Optimize for PHP 7, but support PHP 5.5+
• Stable release October 2015!

Components

ZF1: the past

• Components are developed within the framework repository, and
• are installable only with the entire framework.

ZF2: today

• Components are developed within the framework repository, and
• can be installed individually (Composer, git submodules).

The future

ZF 2.5+

• Components will be developed in their own repositories.
• Components will be installable individually.
• The ZF repository will depend on components!

ZF's composer.json becomes...

{
  "require": {
    "zendframework/zend-authentication": "^2.5",
    "zendframework/zend-cache": "^2.5",
    "zendframework/zend-captcha": "^2.5",
    "etc": "*"
  }
}
          

Why?

Ease maintenance

• Allow more teams with commit rights
• Allow deterministic fate of repositories

Selective evolution

• Bump major versions as needed
• Framework repo can selectively upgrade components

Use-case specific skeletons

• Delivering only web services?
• Need performance?
• Need everything?

There will be a skeleton for that!

HTTP, PSR-7, and Middleware

HTTP is the foundation of the web

• A client sends a request
• A server returns a response

HTTP messages

GET /path HTTP/1.1
Host: example.com
Accept: application/json
            

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json

{"foo":"bar"}
            

Frameworks model messages

But every framework does it differently.

$method = $request->getMethod();
$method = $request->getRequestMethod();
$method = $request->method;
          

PSR-7

Shared HTTP Message Interfaces

Request

$method     = $request->getMethod();
$accept     = $request->getHeader('Accept');
$path       = $request->getUri()->getPath();
$controller = $request->getAttribute('controller');
          

Response

$response->getBody()->write('Hello world!');
$response = $response
  ->withStatus(200, 'OK')
  ->withHeader('Content-Type', 'text/plain');
          

PSR-7 and the ZF MVC

Still under discussion, but…

• we may consume PSR-7 directly
• or create a bridge implementation

Middleware

Between the request and response

function (Request $request, Response $response)
{
    // do some work
    return $response; // same, or a new instance.
}
          

Types of middleware

Stacks or pipelines

$pipeline->pipe($middleware1);          // always evaluate
$pipeline->pipe('/path', $middleware2); // only if path matches
$pipeline->pipe('/different/path', $middleware3);
$response = $pipeline->run();
          

Onion style

class Outer
{
    public $inner;
    public function __invoke($request, $response)
    {
        // do some work

        $response = ($this->inner)($request, $response);

        // do some work
        return $response;
    }
}

$response = $outer($request, $response);
          

Lambda style

function (Request $request)
{
    // do some work
    return $response;
}

$response = $middleware($request);
          

Consuming middleware

ZF will allow dispatching the following middleware:

/**
 * @return Response
 */
public function (Request $request, Response $response);
          

… and ZF controllers will be middleware.

Middleware wrapper for ZF

$middleware = new MvcMiddlewareWrapper(
    require 'config/application/config.php'
);

class MvcMiddlewareWrapper
{
    public function __invoke($request, $response)
    {
        $app = Application::init($this->config);
        return $app->dispatch($request, $response);
    }
}
          

Middleware as an alternative runtime

Why?!?!?!?!

• Performance
• Developer experience
• Reusability across frameworks

Example

$app = new Middleware();
$app->pipe('/', $homepage);              // Static!
$app->pipe('/customer', $zf2Middleware); // ZF2!
$app->pipe('/products', $zf1Middleware); // ZF1!
$app->pipe('/api', $apigility);          // Apigility!
$app->pipe('/user', $userMiddleware);    // 3rd party!

$server->listen($app);
          

PSR-7 and Middleware provide…

• Paths for performance optimization
• Simpler web-facing interfaces
• Greater interoperability and re-use potential

PHP 7 and PHP 5.5

Upgrade to PHP 5.5

• We get to use traits!
• We get to use short array syntax!
• We get to use the callable type hint!
• We get to use finally!
• We can use the ::class magic constant!
• We get to use generators!
• We get faster, more secure PHP!

PHP 7

Impressive performance improvement!

New data structure management in the PHP engine

New features like return/scalar type declarations

PHP 7: benchmark

$a = array();
for ($i = 0; $i < 1000000; $i++) {
	$a[$i] = array("hello");
}
echo memory_get_usage(true);

bench.php

Wordpress

Frameworks

ZF3: optimized for PHP 7

• Running tests in strict and/or coercive mode.
  • Allowing us to fix bugs for PHP 5, and also forward-proof code for PHP 7.
• Potentially automate release builds that add scalar typehints from docblock annotations.
• Profiling in PHP 7 to see where we can optimize architecture for performance.

Updating PHP…

• Provides better security
• Improves performance
• Allows us to improve the framework

Summarize

Components!

HTTP, PSR-7, and Middleware!

PHP 7 and PHP 5.5!

Some references

• Matthew Weier O'Phinney, PSR-7 By Example
• Matthew Weier O'Phinney, On HTTP, Middleware, and PSR-7
• PHP Framework Interop Group, PSR HTTP Message
• 5 THINGS YOU MUST KNOW ABOUT PHP7, Infographic by Zend
• Get performance insight into the upcoming release of PHP 7, Infographic by Zend
• Dmitry Stogov, PHPNG a New Core for PHP7, ZendCond 2014

Thank you!

Rate this talk at: joind.in/14532

Enrico Zimuel
http//framework.zend.com
https://apigility.org
@ezimuel
http://www.zimuel.it

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