Phalcon - Giant Killer

PhalconGiant Killer

Jacksonfdam

http://about.me/jacksonfdam

https://bitbucket.org/jacksonfdam

https://github.com/jacksonfdam

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@jacksonfdam

A thanks to

For encourage and believe in the passage of knowledge. (And to release me from work to be here.)”

Why?

• Use of frameworks has become mandatory in professional development with PHP • They offer a philosophy and organized structures to easily maintain projects writing less code and making work more fun

How PHP works?

1. PHP have dynamic and weak typing discipline 2. PHP is interpreted (not compiled) 3. Every time a script is loaded, should be interpreted by PHP 4. If a bytecode cache (like APC) isn’t used, syntax checking is performed every time

How traditional php frameworks works?

1. Many files with classes and functions are read at every request made. Disk reading is expensive in terms of performance 2. Modern frameworks use lazy loading technique (autoload) for load and execute only code needed 3. Continuous loading/interpreting could be expensive and impact your application performance 4. When you use a framework most of the code remain the same across development. Why load and interpret it every time?

How a PHP C extension works?

1. C extensions are loaded together with PHP one time, on the web server dispatch process 2. Classes and functions provided by the extension are ready to use for any application 3. The code isn’t interpreted because it is compiled to a specific platform and processor

What is Phalcon?

Phalcon is an open source, full stack framework for PHP 5 written as a C-extension, optimized for high performance. You don’t need to learn or use the C language, since the functionality is exposed as PHP classes ready for you to use. Phalcon also is loosely coupled, allowing you to use

its objects as glue components based on the needs of your application.

How Phalcon works?

1. Components are loosely coupled. You may use the components you want without depending on a full stack 2. Low-level optimizations provide the lowest overhead for MVC-based applications 3. Interact with databases with maximum performance by using a C-language ORM for PHP 4. Phalcon is directly engaged with PHP, so it can directly access internal structures optimizing execution as well

What is Phalcon?

Compare how Phalcon is faster than other frameworks

Traditional Frameworks Phalcon

Interpretation of hundreds or thousands of PHP lines on each request

YES NO

Load dozens of files in each request

YES NO

Checking the existence of functions, methods, classes, constants at each request

YES NO

Low-level optimizations gaining microseconds for each request

NO YES

Framework Benchmark

Framework Benchmark

Framework Benchmark

<h1>Hello!</h1>

Test Environment

Operative System: Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.8 • Web Server: Apache httpd 2.2.21 • PHP: 5.3.8 + APC 3.1.9 (Without Xdebug) • CPU: 3.06 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo • Main Memory: 4GB 1067 MHz DDR3 • Hard Disk: 500GB SCSI/SAS HDD

Framework Benchmark

ab -n 1000 -c 5 http://localhost/bench/phalcon

Framework/Requests per Second

Framework Total Requests/Average Time

Number of Interpreted Files per Request

Allocated Memory per Request

Installation

To use phalcon on Windows you can download a DLL library. Edit your php.ini file and then append at the end:

extension=php_phalcon.dllRestart your webserver.

Requirements

Prerequisite packages are:

PHP >= 5.3 development resourcesGCC compiler (Linux/Solaris)Git (if not already installed in your system - unless you download the package from GitHub and upload it on your server via FTP/SFTP)

Requirements

Prerequisite packages are:

PHP >= 5.3 development resourcesGCC compiler (Linux/Solaris)Git (if not already installed in your system - unless you download the package from GitHub and upload it on your server via FTP/SFTP)

Requirements

Specific packages for common platforms:

#Ubuntusudo apt-get install php5-dev libpcre3-dev gcc make php5-mysql

#Susesudo yast -i gcc make autoconf2.13 php5-devel php5-pear php5-mysql

#CentOS/RedHat/Fedorasudo yum install php-devel pcre-devel gcc make

#Solarispkg install gcc-45 php-53 apache-php53

Compilation

git clone --depth=1 git://github.com/phalcon/cphalcon.gitcd cphalcon/buildsudo ./install

Configure

Add extension to your php configuration:#Suse: Add this line in your php.iniextension=phalcon.so

#Centos/RedHat/Fedora: Add a file called phalcon.ini in /etc/php.d/ with this content:extension=phalcon.so

#Ubuntu/Debian: Add a file called 30-phalcon.ini in /etc/php.d/ with this content:extension=phalcon.so

#Debian with php5-fpm: Add a file called 30-phalcon.ini in /etc/php5/fpm/conf.d/30-phalcon.ini with this content:extension=phalcon.so

Restart the webserver.

Configure

Phalcon automatically detects your architecture, however, you can force the compilation for a specific architecture:

cd cphalon/buildsudo ./install 32bitssudo ./install 64bitssudo ./install safe

Mac OS X

On a Mac OS X system you can compile and install the extension from the source code:

RequirementsPrerequisite packages are:PHP >= 5.3 development resourcesXCode#brewbrew tap homebrew/homebrew-phpbrew install php53-phalconbrew install php54-phalconbrew install php55-phalconbrew install php56-phalcon

#MacPortssudo port install php53-phalconsudo port install php54-phalconsudo port install php55-phalconsudo port install php56-phalcon

Installation on XAMPP

XAMPP is an easy to install Apache distribution containing MySQL, PHP and Perl. Once you download XAMPP, all you have to do is extract it and start using it. Below are detailed instructions on how to install Phalcon on XAMPP for Windows. Using the latest XAMPP version is highly recommended.

Installation on XAMPP

XAMPP is always releasing 32 bit versions of Apache and PHP. You will need to download the x86 version of Phalcon for Windows from the download section.

After downloading the Phalcon library you will have a zip file like the one shown below:

Installation on XAMPP

Extract the library from the archive to get the Phalcon DLL:

Installation on XAMPP

Copy the file php_phalcon.dll to the PHP extensions. If you have installed XAMPP in the c:\xampp folder, the extension needs to be in c:\xampp\php\ext

Installation on XAMPP

Edit the php.ini file, it is located at C:\xampp\php\php.ini. It can be edited with Notepad or a similar program. We recommend Notepad++ to avoid issues with line endings. Append at the end of the file: extension=php_phalcon.dll and save it.

Installation on XAMPP

Restart the Apache Web Server from the XAMPP Control Center. This will load the new PHP configuration.

Installation on XAMPP

Open your browser to navigate to http://localhost. The XAMPP welcome page will appear. Click on the link phpinfo().

phpinfo() will output a significant amount of information on screen about the current state of PHP. Scroll down to check if the phalcon extension has been loaded correctly.

If you can see the phalcon version in the phpinfo() output, congrats!, You are now flying with Phalcon.

Creating a project

File structurePhalcon does not impose a particular file structure for application development. Due to the fact that it is loosely coupled, you can implement Phalcon powered applications with a file structure you are most comfortable using.

Creating a project

For the purposes of this tutorial and as a starting point, we suggest the following structure:tutorial/ app/ controllers/ models/ views/ public/ css/ img/ js/

Beautiful URLs

#/tutorial/.htaccess<IfModule mod_rewrite.c> RewriteEngine on RewriteRule ^$ public/ [L] RewriteRule (.*) public/$1 [L]</IfModule>

#/tutorial/.htaccess<IfModule mod_rewrite.c> RewriteEngine on RewriteRule ^$ public/ [L] RewriteRule (.*) public/$1 [L]</IfModule>

Bootstrap<?php

try {

//Register an autoloader $loader = new \Phalcon\Loader(); $loader->registerDirs(array( '../app/controllers/', '../app/models/' ))->register();

//Create a DI $di = new Phalcon\DI\FactoryDefault();

//Setup the view component $di->set('view', function(){ $view = new \Phalcon\Mvc\View(); $view->setViewsDir('../app/views/'); return $view; });

//Setup a base URI so that all generated URIs include the "tutorial" folder $di->set('url', function(){ $url = new \Phalcon\Mvc\Url(); $url->setBaseUri('/tutorial/'); return $url; });

//Handle the request $application = new \Phalcon\Mvc\Application($di);

echo $application->handle()->getContent();

} catch(\Phalcon\Exception $e) { echo "PhalconException: ", $e->getMessage();}

Creating a Controller

By default Phalcon will look for a controller named “Index”. It is the starting point when no controller or action has been passed in the request. The index controller (app/controllers/IndexController.php) looks like:

<?phpclass IndexController extends \Phalcon\Mvc\Controller{ public function indexAction() { echo "<h1>Hello!</h1>"; }}

Creating a Controller

Sending output to a viewSending output to the screen from the controller is at times necessary but not desirable as most purists in the MVC community will attest. Everything must be passed to the view that is responsible for outputting data on screen. Phalcon will look for a view with the same name as the last executed action inside a directory named as the last executed controller. In our case (app/views/index/index.phtml):

<?php echo "<h1>Hello!</h1>";Our controller (app/controllers/IndexController.php) now has an empty action definition:<?phpclass IndexController extends \Phalcon\Mvc\Controller{ public function indexAction() { }

}

Creating a Model

Phalcon brings the first ORM for PHP entirely written in C-language. Instead of increasing the complexity of development, it simplifies it.

Before creating our first model, we need to create a database table outside of Phalcon to map it to. A simple table to store registered users can be defined like this:

CREATE TABLE `users` ( `id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT, `name` varchar(70) NOT NULL, `email` varchar(70) NOT NULL, PRIMARY KEY (`id`));

Creating a Model

A model should be located in the app/models directory (app/models/Users.php). The model maps to the “users” table:

<?php

class Users extends \Phalcon\Mvc\Model{

}

Setting a Database Connection

In order to be able to use a database connection and subsequently access data through our models, we need to specify it in our bootstrap process. A database connection is just another service that our application has that can be used for several components:

Setting a Database Connection<?php

try {

//Register an autoloader $loader = new \Phalcon\Loader(); $loader->registerDirs(array( '../app/controllers/', '../app/models/' ))->register();

//Create a DI $di = new Phalcon\DI\FactoryDefault();

/

/Setup the database service $di->set('db', function(){ return new \Phalcon\Db\Adapter\Pdo\Mysql(array( "host" => "localhost", "username" => "root", "password" => "secret", "dbname" => "test_db" )); });

//Setup the view component $di->set('view', function(){ $view = new \Phalcon\Mvc\View(); $view->setViewsDir('../app/views/'); return $view; });

//Setup a base URI so that all generated URIs include the "tutorial" folder $di->set('url', function(){ $url = new \Phalcon\Mvc\Url(); $url->setBaseUri('/tutorial/'); return $url; });

//Handle the request $application = new \Phalcon\Mvc\Application($di);

echo $application->handle()->getContent();

} catch(Exception $e) { echo "PhalconException: ", $e->getMessage();}

Volt: Template Engine

Volt is an ultra-fast and designer friendly templating language written in C for PHP. It provides you a set of helpers to write views in an easy way. Volt is highly integrated with other components of Phalcon, just as you can use it as a stand-alone component in your applications.

Volt: Template Engine

Volt: Template Engine

Volt views are compiled to pure PHP code, so basically they save the effort of writing PHP code manually:

{# app/views/products/show.volt #}{% block last_products %}{% for product in products %}

* Name: {{ product.name|e }}

{% if product.status == "Active" %}

Price: {{ product.price + product.taxes/100 }}

{% endif %}{% endfor %}{% endblock %}

Thank you.@jacksonfdam