Distribute Nette as single PHAR file

Milo

Hasn't been there a discussion on this topic earlier? I didn't find any threads…

I just tried to compile Nette 2.0.13 to phar and it works nice. Comparisions to minified version:
Pros:

phar loading is 5× faster
phar.gz loading is 2× faster
phar.gz is 2× smaller
classes are loaded on demand

Cons:

phar is 2× bigger

Dirty code to compile it:

if (ini_get('phar.readonly')) {
	echo "Disable 'phar.readonly' in php.ini.\n";
	exit(1);
}


$pharName = 'nette-dev.phar';
$pharDst = __DIR__ . "/$pharName";
$srcDir = realpath(__DIR__ . '/../nette/Nette');


$phar = new Phar(
	$pharDst,
	FilesystemIterator::CURRENT_AS_FILEINFO | FilesystemIterator::KEY_AS_FILENAME,
	$pharName
);

$phar->buildFromDirectory($srcDir);
$phar->setStub($phar->createDefaultStub('loader.php'));

@unlink($pharDst . '.gz');
$pharGz = $phar->compress(Phar::GZ);
$pharGz->setStub($pharGz->createDefaultStub('loader.php'));

Dirty code to test it:

$dt = -microtime(TRUE);
#require 'phar://' . __DIR__ . '/nette-dev.phar/loader.php';
#require __DIR__ . '/nette-dev.phar';
require __DIR__ . '/nette-dev.phar.gz'; # 2x slower
#require __DIR__ . '/nette.min.php';
$dt += microtime(TRUE);

Nette\Diagnostics\Debugger::enable(FALSE);
Nette\Diagnostics\Debugger::$strictMode = TRUE;

dump($dt);
dump(get_declared_classes());


# Just autoloading test
$finder = new Nette\Utils\Finder;
dump($finder);

It needs more tests, actually run all Nette tests. I can do that, but I want to ask you for experiences and opinions at first.

Milo

Heh,ok, just found one old article https://phpfashion.com/…ktnim-baleni but without result…

enumag

@Milo: How is it compared to non-minified version? I'm thinking about making a phar file out of the vendor directory after deployment. Not sure whether it's a good idea though.

Majkl578

Just a side note, PHAR archives are currently (or was recently) buggy under Zend Optimizer (aka OPcache).

enumag wrote:

How is it compared to non-minified version?

PHAR content is not minified. It's full version, just packed into an archive (think about it like including nette.zip).

Milo

@enumag

How is it compared to non-minified version?

I dind't compare PHARed and full (non-minified) Nette versions. But PHAR size is almost the same with small overhead. Just view a PHAR content in some text editor and you'll see why. And class loading will be a little bit slower, but I have no measurements.

I'm thinking about making a phar file out of the vendor directory after deployment. Not sure whether it's a good idea though.

I have no experiences.

@Majkl578
Thanks. As I read it, the OPcache is broken when path to PHAR begins by phar:// and the rest is relative path to PHAR file. In that case there can be collisions. But when it is used without phar:// or with phar:///absolute/path/file.phar there's no problem.

I runned Nette tests with PHARed version and all passed. But it needs own (simplier) PHAR stub. I used:

$phar->setStub("<?php
require 'phar://' . __FILE__ . '/loader.php';
__HALT_COMPILER();");

The right stub code is questionable for distribution.

David Grudl

I tried to benchmark the Sandbox under PHP 5.5.6 and there are “time per request” in ms (concurrency = 10):

	NetteLoader	Composer	nette.min.php	phar	phar + gzip
bez Opcache	13	13	13	12	36
s Opcache	13	13	13	13	36

Sandbox is very atypical project, so there is measurements of the real eshop (with opcache)

NetteLoader	Composer	nette.min.php	phar	phar + gzip
64	54	62	62	63

NetteLoaderem refers to a combination of Composer & NetteLoader that is since 2.1.0 not used. From the results, it seems that minified version could be replaced with Phar.

Milo

Wow, that's great, thank you! I just saw it on GitHub before few minutes.

I'm surprised about almost the same times with/without Opcache. And such big decompressing overhead in sandbox and small overhead in eshop. Interesting.

Note to phar stub. As I understood to default stub source code var_dump($phar->createDefaultStub('loader.php')), it is possible to load phar content without phar extension. But phar extension is part of core since PHP 5.3.0, I guess it is not needed.

JakubJarabica

Any ideas how can I get Nette in phar to work with PHPStorm + Xdebug?

When I create breakpoint e.g. on $form->setDefaults($variable), I cannot get inside FormContainer: https://www.dropbox.com/…08.11.46.png.

When I googled I found on Jetbrains blog info that phar is supported in PHPStorm, Xdebug supports it as well. I already ran action “Include phar into project”, but it didn't help.

Thanks!

Filip Procházka

Just FYI, minified versions (.min.php or .phar) are supposed to be used only on production. You're supposed to use not-minified version of the package on development for exactly theese reasons :)

And FYI 2, if you have APC or any other opcode caching, there is no benefit in using minified version at all.

Just use composer and don't kill your time anymore :)

JakubJarabica

OK, will do, thanks.

Just a side note. What is the best way to automate switching between Nette versions? Modifying deployment script to not deploy full version and modify bootstrap? Moreover, how can composer help me with this?