Reusing Old Tricks | Setting Up a Host Environment

Table of contents:

Summary

Summary

As you can see, embedding the full force of the Zend Engine and PHP language into your application actually requires less work than extending it with new functionality. Because they both share the same basic API, learning to do one makes the other instantly accessible.

Through this chapter you explored the simplest form of embedding script code by taking advantage of the all-in-one macros PHP_EMBED_START_BLOCK() and PHP_EMBED_END_BLOCK(). In the next chapter, you'll peel back the layers of these macros to integrate PHP more seamlessly with your host application.

The PHP Life Cycle

Variables from the Inside Out

Memory Management

Setting Up a Build Environment

Your First Extension

Returning Values

Accepting Parameters

Working with Arrays and HashTables

The Resource Data Type

PHP4 Objects

PHP5 Objects

Startup, Shutdown, and a Few Points in Between

INI Settings

Accessing Streams

Implementing Streams

Diverting the Stream

Configuration and Linking

Extension Generators

Setting Up a Host Environment

Advanced Embedding

Appendix A. A Zend API Reference

Appendix B. PHPAPI

Appendix C. Extending and Embedding Cookbook

Appendix D. Additional Resources