New PHP will move closer to Java _php

The so-called "PHP" is open source Web application development/operating environment, recently "Nikkei open System" Reporters on the future development of the PHP Development Center plans and other issues to interview the center member Zeev Suraski. Zeev Suraski says the new version of PHP will import such statements as try, catch, and so on, to get closer to Java, making it easier to develop large systems. (Interviewer: Takahashi Trust)

--Please talk about the cause of your decision to develop PHP.

Rasmus Lerdorf first published PHP in 1995. In 1997, when I was making an Israeli university web page and an online store site, I used a tool called PHP/FI (Personal Home page/form interpreter) When I started contacting PHP. In the process of use, found a very big bug. Because the source code is public, so I have made a survey of the cause of the bug and made changes, found in the investigation there is still a lot of room for improvement. The Php/fi script execution engine was modified along with the Andi Gutmans, which then worked together on the project. After the modified execution engine is handed over to Lerdorf, it becomes the official execution engine of the new PHP3.0.

By improving the script execution engine, we developed a higher speed Zend engine. The name Zend is a combination of Zeev and Andi. PHP embedded with Zend Engine is the current version of PHP4. The original program is read into the side interpretation to execute, and then changed to each execution cycle interpretation once, so the implementation of 100 cycles will be 100 times the same interpretation processing. Zend Engine is the first to explain the entire file script, and then start execution. The speed of execution has been greatly improved by drastically reducing the interpretation process.

PHP4 was downloaded 265,000 times within 2 months of publication. PHP is currently installed at least 6 million domain name servers, according to Netcraft, a US-based research firm.

I think the main reason PHP is popular is that it's simple and practical. Someone in my email said: "Despite the lack of programming experience, I wrote a simple program using PHP in just 3 hours." The use of Java is not up to this level. In addition, PHP is developed for WWW, so cookies and forms can also be easily processed.

PHP is free and will continue to be released for free in the future, but with the requirements of business costs and support products, Israel Zend was established in 1999 and developed high-speed PHP software and comprehensive development tools for sales.

-What features are you ready to expand in the new PHP5, scheduled for release at the end of 2002?

Object-oriented features will be further improved, making it easier to develop large systems. Although PHP already has classes and subclasses, PHP5 will be closer to Java. A special processing statement structure with Java such as try, catch, and so on is introduced.

In PHP4, the function is used as a variable, even if the given object does not change. PHP can be assigned as standard, and objects can also be assigned, so the function value is not the object itself, but a copy of the value. When the function needs to be changed to the value of the object, it is necessary to add the "&" symbol before the object as the variable to be specifically prompted. This is not required in Java, and PHP5 uses the same pattern as Java.

In addition, PHP5 imports the namespace (name space), and when the namespace is determined, the valid range of functions, variables, and class names is limited to the namespace. When the name range is clear, duplicate names can be ignored when using variables and function names, which facilitates the development of large programs.

The new feature named "Stream" is also a handy feature. It allows the WWW server and the files on the FTP server to use the same functions as local files. In other words, fopen (local file name) can be used like fopen (hppt://hostname/file name). Compressed files can be processed like normal non-compressed files. And instead of waiting for PHP5, the "stream" will be installed in a later release of PHP4.

It is pointed out that because PHP is an HTML-embedded type, it is difficult to decouple the display (Presentation) from the logical part, as it does in Java.

In fact, using PHP can completely separate the display from the logical part. PHP has a feature to bring up Java objects. You can use PHP as the display layer and Java objects as logical layers.

Another approach is to use the template Library Smarty method. Smarty is a tool for dynamically generating HTML from HTML templates. Even if the PHP logic is not written entirely in HTML, it is possible to generate HTML-compliant PHP running results.

However, it does not mean that in any case the separation of the display and logic is advantageous. For example, in the development of small systems, the separation becomes more complex, it is difficult to grasp the overall, ultimately affecting the development efficiency, which is the disadvantage.

-At the end of February 2002, PHP was found to have a serious security breach.

PHP did not have a serious security breach in 5 years, but unfortunately there was a problem with the file upload function at the end of February.

We believe that security is critical and we have taken 2 steps: First, the patch was produced and published within 30 hours of receiving a security vulnerability report. There is no guarantee that there will be no security breaches. We will continue to do our utmost and prompt remedial action if serious security breaches are found in the future.

Second, we have started to check the source code of PHP, a security check. Even if it is not your own security vulnerability, you should check and correct the part that may be problematic.

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