Jaslabs: High performance Software

By Justin Silverton

Phalanger is a new PHP implementation introducing the PHP language into the family of compiled .NET languages. It provides PHP applications an execution environment that is fast and extremely compatible with the vast array of existing PHP code. Phalanger gives web-application developers the ability to benefit from both the ease-of-use and effectiveness of the PHP language and the power and richness of the .NET platform taking profit from the best from both sides.

Using .net classes

Phalanger supports full interoperability with .NET. This means that you can access almost any .NET classes (written in C#, VB.NET and other managed languages) from your PHP applications. This requires adding several features to the PHP language that allows you to use .NET features like namespace (which are used to organize .NET classes) and generics (used for specifying type parameters of methods and classes). These language extensions are called PHP/CLR and are designed to retain dynamic PHP behavior (for more details see PHP/CLR Language Extensions).

Thanks to the PHP/CLR extensions you can easilly integrate existing PHP and ASP.NET applications, or use classes available for .NET Framework in your PHP application. This gives you for example the possibility to modify open-source PHP applications to use the standard ASP.NET 2.0 Membership (user management) system, which is very powerfull option for integrating web applications.

You can also develop new applications using PHP with the PHP/CLR language extensions and combine PHP and other .NET languages (for example C#) in one project. This gives you the possibility to leverage of the C# strictness in the application logic layer where the safety and strict object orientation is important, but use the simplicity and efficiency of PHP language for developing the presentation layer.

Features

• compiles PHP to the MSIL (Microsoft Intermediate Language), which is byte-code assembly used by the .NET CLR.
• Improves execution speed (because of just-in-time compilation)
• use any .NET object in a PHP application
• Visual studio integration: supports syntax highlighting for PHP source files and debugging

Benchmarks

How much faster is it than the standard version of PHP?

Download

The latest version of Phalanger can be found Here

4 comments

By Justin Silverton

The most powerful command within mysql is explain. Explain can tell you exactly what mysql is doing when you execute a query and with this information, you can find slow queries and minimize execution time, which can significantly improve the speed of your web application.

How to use the explain command

Here is a simple example of its usage:

Database Schema:

(users table)

(address table)

In this simple example, I am selecting a record that is representing a user, based on a userid.

Here is the output:

Variable	Details
	The ID of this table in the query. EXPLAIN will create one output record for each table in the query.
	possible values: SIMPLE, PRIMARY, UNION, DEPENDENT UNION, SUBSELECT, and DERIVED.
	The name of the table MYSQL will read the records from.
	The type of join that mysql will use. Possible values: eq_ref,ref,range, index, or all.
	a list of indexes (or NULL if none) mysql can use to find rows in the table.
	The name of the index MYSQL will use (after checking all possible indexes).
	The size of the key in bytes.
	The columns or values that are used to match against the key
	The number of rows mysql thinks it needs to examine to execute the query.
	extra information about the query

This example is pretty straight forward. Since we are peforming a search based on the primary key (userid), there can be only one record that can possible match (the rows variable is 1).

A more advanced example:

This query is more advanced than the first one. It is performing an inner join on the users and address table based on the userid. The userid is a primary key within the users table, but it is not an index in the address table. The output of the explain command shows us the following:

(users table)

Type: const
Possible_Keys: primary
Ref: const

(address table)

Type: all
Possible_Keys: (none)
Ref: (none)

The first table is optimized. It is using the primary key for this query. The second table, however is not optimized. The type is all and the Possible_keys=(none), which means it is going to have to go through a full table-scan. Adding an index on the user field optimizes this query.

Final output after index is added:

(users table)

Type: const
Possible_Keys: primary
Ref: const

(address table)

Type: const
Possible_Keys: primary
Ref: const

More information on this command can be found Here

3 comments

By Justin Silverton

The following are the top 5 firefox extensions that every developer should be using.

5) Open source in tab

Opens the page’s source file in a new tab. Has a preference to either open source in a new tab or existing tab.

Download here

4) IE Tab

A great extension that allows you to run an instance of Internet Explorer in a firefox tab. This is great for testing a new site that may look different in each browser.

Features:

• Supports multiple languages
• Allows the switching of the rendering engines (IE and mozilla) with one click

Download here

3) Server Switcher

Server Switcher allows you to easily switch between sites on your development and live servers, so that you can immediately see the differences.

Features:

• You can create multiple development/live-server-pairs.
• Multiple keyboard shortcuts
• Support for ports other than 80
• supported by flock and firefox

Download here

2) Web Developer

The sheer number of options and developer tools that are available with this plugin make it a great option for a web 2.0 environment.

Features:

• Easily disable java, javascript, popup blocker, and referrers.
• View Advanced cookie information
• Advanced form debugging - (Show passwords,convert GET <=> POST,remove maximum length)
• Outline frames, headings, links, and tables
• Resize the current window
• Validate CSS,HTML,Links, and WAI

Download Here

1) Firebug

Any list involving firefox plugins and developers should have firebug near the top. This plugin is great for debugging javascript in realtime, which is a must for anyone developing a web application.

Features:

• Inspect and edit HTML live on any website.
• Measure all the offsets, margins, borders, padding, and sizes (great for CSS).
• Get a list of each individual javascript file that is being loaded and each load time.
• Pause javascript execution and set breakpoints.
• Advanced javascript, CSS, and XML error reports
• Edit DOM objects in real-time
• Javascript command-line for easy execution of code

Download Here

7 comments

by Justin Silverton

Many PHP examples out there are designed for a linux/unix operating system. I am going to give some examples of some interesting functionality that only works with php running in a windows environment (IIS or apache).

1) Eject the CD-ROM

//create an instance of Windows Media Player
$mp = new COM("WMPlayer.OCX");
//ejects the first cd-rom on the drive list
$mp->cdromcollection->item(0)->eject();

2) Read and write from/to the registry

function registry_read($folder, $key)
{
$WshShell = new COM("WScript.Shell");

$registry = "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\\" . $folder . "\\" . $key;
$result = $WshShell->RegRead($registry);

return($result);
}

$key = registry_read("RegisteredApplications","Firefox");


parameters:

• Folder name - (key path past HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\\)
• key - the key name to read from

function registry_write($folder, $key, $value,$type="REG_SZ")
{
$WshShell = new COM("WScript.Shell");

$registry = "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\\" . $folder . "\\" . $key;
$result = $WshShell->RegRead($registry);
$result = $WshShell->RegWrite($registry,$value, $type);

return($result);
}

parameters:

• Folder name - (key path past HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\\)
• key - the key name to write to
• value - value that will be written to the key
• type - key type (default: REG_SZ)

3) register and un-register phpscripts as a windows service

# registering a service

win32_create_service(array(
’service’ => ‘myservice’, # the name of your service
‘display’ => ’sample dummy PHP service’, # description
‘params’ => ‘c:\path\to\script.php run’, # path to the script and parameters
));

# un-registering a service

win32_delete_service(’myservice’);

# code run as a service

if ($argv[1] == 'run') {
win32_start_service_ctrl_dispatcher('myservice');

while (WIN32_SERVICE_CONTROL_STOP != win32_get_last_control_message()) {
# write script here
# as a general rule, keep it below 30 seconds through each loop iteration
}
}

This uses the windows API Service DLL, which is not enabled by default. Here is how to install it:

• Download the main library (it’s included in the main PECL extension download from php.net) here
• extract php_win32service.dll to your ext directory (where your php extension .dlls are located)
• add the following line to your php.ini: extension=php_win32service.dll

4) print pages/data

#this is an example function that will format a host/printer name, for printing to shared printers over the network

function getPrinter($host,$SharedPrinterName) {
return “\\\\”.$host.”\\”.$SharedPrinterName;
}

#this opens the printer
$handle = printer_open(getPrinter(”my computer 2″,”my printer”));

An extensive list of functions for printing can be found here

#this is possible in *nix as well. Here is some example code

function lpr($string,$printer) {
$prn=(isset($printer) && strlen($printer))?”$printer”:C_DEFAULTPRN ;
$CMDLINE=”lpr -P $printer “;
$pipe=popen(”$CMDLINE” , ‘w’ );
if (!$pipe) {print “pipe failed.”; return “”; }
fputs($pipe,$string);
pclose($pipe);
}

This uses the windows API Service DLL, which is not enabled by default. Here is how to install it:

• Download the main library (it’s included in the main PECL extension download from php.net) here
• extract php_printer.dll to your ext directory (where your php extension .dlls are located)
• add the following line to your php.ini: extension=php_printer.dll

5) List the current system processes

# list all the current processes running on the system

print_r(win32_ps_list_procs());

other related commands:

# Retrieves statistics about the global memory utilization
print_r(win32_ps_stat_mem());

# Retrieves statistics about the process with the process id pid (if no process id is given, the current process will be used)
print_r(win32_ps_stat_proc(int processid));

This uses the windows API Service DLL, which is not enabled by default. Here is how to install it:

• Download the main library (it’s included in the main PECL extension download from php.net) here
• extract php_win32ps.dll to your ext directory (where your php extension .dlls are located)
• add the following line to your php.ini: extension=php_win32ps.dll

12 comments