Changes brought about by PHP7’s Abstract Syntax Tree (AST)

What is an abstract syntax tree?

Abstract syntax tree (AST) is a tree representation of the abstract syntax structure of the source code. Each node on the tree represents a structure in the source code. This is why It is abstract because the abstract syntax tree does not represent every detail of the real grammar. For example, nested brackets are implicit in the structure of the tree and are not presented in the form of nodes. The abstract syntax tree does not depend on the grammar of the source language, which means that the context-free grammar used in the syntax analysis stage [Grammar is the formal rules used to describe the grammatical structure of a language. Any language has its own grammar, whether it is machine language or natural language. 】, because when writing grammar, equivalent transformations are often performed on the grammar (elimination of left recursion, backtracking, ambiguity, etc.), which will introduce some redundant components into the grammar analysis, adversely affect the subsequent stages, and even Make the whole stage confusing. For this reason, many compilers often need to construct syntax analysis trees independently to establish a clear interface for the front end and back end

PHP-Parser’s project homepage is https://github.com/nikic/PHP- Parser. It can perfectly parse multiple versions of PHP and generate an abstract syntax tree.

New execution process

An important change in the core of PHP7 is the addition of AST. In PHP5, the execution process from php scripts to opcodes is:

1.Lexing: lexical scanning analysis, converting source files into token streams;

2.Parsing: syntax analysis, Op arrays are generated at this stage.

In PHP7, op arrays are no longer directly generated during the syntax analysis phase, but AST is generated first, so there is one more step in the process:

1.Lexing: lexical scanning analysis, converting the source file into token stream;

2.Parsing: syntax analysis, generating abstract syntax tree from token stream;

3.Compilation: generating op arrays from abstract syntax tree.

Execution time and memory consumption

From the above steps, this is one more step than the previous process, so according to common sense, this will increase the program execution time and memory usage. But in fact, the memory usage has indeed increased, but the execution time has decreased.

The following results are obtained by testing three scripts: small (about 100 lines of code), medium (about 700 lines), and large (about 2800 lines). Test script: https://gist.github .com/nikic/289b0c7538b46c2220bc.

Execution time of compiling each file 100 times (note that the test results of the article are from 14 years, when PHP7 was still called PHP-NG):

Memory peak value in a single compilation:

The test results of a single compilation may not represent actual usage. The following is using PhpParser The results of the complete project test:

The test shows that after using AST, the overall execution time of the program is improved by about 10% to 15%, but the memory consumption is also increased. , the increase is obvious in a single compilation of large files, but it is not a serious problem during the entire project execution.

Also note that the above results are all without Opcache. When Opcache is turned on in a production environment, the increase in memory consumption is not a big problem.

Semantic changes

If it is just a time optimization, it does not seem to be a sufficient reason to use AST. In fact, the implementation of AST is not based on time optimization considerations, but to solve syntax problems. Let’s take a look at some changes in semantics.

yield does not require parentheses

In the PHP5 implementation, if you use yield in an expression context (such as on the right side of an assignment expression), you You must use parentheses on both sides of the yield declaration:

      
This behavior is only due to the implementation limitations of PHP5. In PHP7, parentheses are no longer necessary. Therefore, the following writing methods are also legal:
      
 $v;
      
Of course, you must follow the application scenarios of yield.
      
Brackets do not affect behavior
      
In PHP5,
      

      
But in PHP7, the two writing methods mean the same thing.
      
Similarly, if the parameters of the function are wrapped in parentheses, there is a problem with type checking. This problem has also been solved in PHP7:
      

      
The above code will not alarm in PHP5 unless byRef is used (func()), but in PHP7, the following error will occur regardless of whether there are parentheses on both sides of func():
      
PHP Strict standards: Only variables should be passed by reference ...
      
Changes in list()
      
list 关键字的行为改变了很多。list 给变量赋值的顺序（等号左右同时的顺序）以前是从右至左，现在是从左到右：
      

      
产生上面变化的原因正是因为在 PHP5 的赋值过程中，3 会最先被填入数组，1 最后，但是现在顺序改变了。
      
同样的变化还有：
      

      
这是因为在以前的赋值过程中 $b 先得到 2，然后 $a 的值才变成1，但是现在 $a 先变成了 1，不再是数组，所以 $b 就成了null。
      
list 现在只会访问每个偏移量一次
      

      
空的 list 成员现在是全部禁止的，以前只是在某些情况下：
      

      
引用赋值的顺序
      
引用赋值的顺序在 PHP5 中是从右到左的，现在时从左到右：
      
a = &$obj->b; $obj->b = 1; var_dump($obj); // PHP5: object(stdClass)#1 (2) { ["b"] => &int(1) ["a"] => &int(1) } // PHP7: object(stdClass)#1 (2) { ["a"] => &int(1) ["b"] => &int(1) }
      
__clone 方法可以直接调用
      
现在可以直接使用 $obj->__clone() 的写法去调用 __clone 方法。 __clone 是之前唯一一个被禁止直接调用的魔术方法，之前你会得到一个这样的错误：
      
Fatal error:Cannot call __clone() method on objects -use 'clone $obj' instead in...
      
变量语法一致性
      
AST 也解决了一些语法一致性的问题，这些问题是在另外一个 RFC 中被提出的：https://wiki.php.net/rfc/uniform_variable_syntax.
      
在新的实现上，以前的一些语法表达的含义和现在有些不同，具体的可以参照下面的表格：
      

      
整体上还是以前的顺序是从右到左，现在从左到右，同时也遵循括号不影响行为的原则。这些复杂的变量写法是在实际开发中需要注意的。
      
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