> > De : Pierre Joye [mailto:pierre....@gmail.com]
> > > > I tend to prefer separate files and add the right source at configure time. > > It is then easier to keep fixes, features, etc. in sync. > > > > However both solutions may work, if we decide to go for one or another > > solution. We can add support for the packaging/install in pickle and the > > website. To reply to Pierre's question about the way we choose to keep extensions compatible with 5 and 7, I see that the choice was already made :), we will duplicate the code and maintain two distinct code trees :( As the decision is, hopefully, not official yet, may I suggest another solution ? I am currently working on a PHP extension generator. The objective here, is that the developer writes as few code as possible and that this code uses an abstraction layer as rich as possible to keep it compatible with as many different environments as possible. This allows to lower the skills level and the workload required to develop & maintain a PHP extension, especially when the extension must be compatible with different PHP engines/versions. The future need to port PECL extensions massively to PHP 7 is the perfect occasion to convert them to use such a tool. The existing code should be modified to fit the tool but, once done, the code size is greatly reduced and the same source code can be used for every supported target environment (current scope is PHP 5.x, PHP 7, HHVM). When an extension developer leaves, thanks to the extension synthetic description and to the reduced amount of code, the extension is easier to take over. Last, it makes BC breaks in the C API easier to manage as there are chances that the BC break is abstracted (just need to adapt the generator). In this case, the generator is modified, not the extension source code. The developer just describes the extension (in yaml or json) and writes the function/methods bodies using compatibility macros for as many features as possible. In order to build the extension, a specialized code generator generates 'ready-to-compile' code for the PHP engine/version you chose (code is generated using twig templates, making generator development easier). Finally, the tool, even with a limited abstraction scope, can be used for any existing and future extension as, for the features which are not generated/wrapped yet, the user can provide any C code to be included as- is. Please, have a look at the flaupretre/php-ext-gen repository in github, especially the examples and doc subdirectories, and give me your opinion. Regards Fran
