README

= Roadsend PHP: Raven (rphp) =

This is the development site for the rewrite of Roadsend PHP (rphp), based on LLVM and a new C++ runtime. It is an open source, liberally licensed project.

You can find the latest summary on recent developments on http://roadsend-php.blogspot.com

Features/Goals include: 
 * Highly optimized, JIT or static compiled native binaries (via LLVM)
 * PHP source level analysis and optimization
 * Rich diagnostics and error messages
 * Modular design
 * Clean and easy runtime and extension API
 * Full unicode support
 * Latest language features (e.g. PHP5 objects, exceptions, namespaces, lambda functions, etc)
 * Portability, Speed, Security

Unlike our previous project, we are not aiming for 100% compatibility with Zend Engine based PHP. 

== Current Status ==

 * CMake build system
 * Runtime library
  * Runtime variable representation
  * Port of basic runtime system layout
  * Standard Extension started
 * Commandline front end
  * Compile stand alone
  * Run in JIT
 * Compiler and Analysis
  * Full unicode preprocessor/lexer/parser in place
  * Pass system for AST tree traversal and transforming
  * Some code (IR) generation (detailed progress list coming soon)
  * Static analyzer which dumps (in XML)
   * Tokens
   * AST
   * Generated IR
   * Various analysis passes
  * Port of [http://phpcompiler.org phc] optimizer passes
 * Runtime Test Suite (CppUnit and PHP based)

Development currently takes place on Linux x86 (32 and 64) and OSX, but other platforms will be supported.

If you are looking for a fully functioning PHP compiler that works right now, please see our [http://code.roadsend.com/pcc original implementation] instead.

If you'd like to contribute, please contact us or join us in #roadsend on irc.freenode.net

== Requires ==

 * [http://llvm.org LLVM] 3.0 with clang++
 * [http://boost.org Boost] 1.38+ (only headers required, no libraries)
 * [http://cmake.org CMake] 2.6+
 * [http://icu-project.org ICU] 4.2+ 
 * [http://gmplib.org GMP] 4.3.1+

== Docs ==

 * [http://roadsend-php.blogspot.com Development Blog]
 * [http://code.roadsend.com/docs/doxygen/annotated.html Doxygen Source Documentation]

== Source ==

Browse the source at:
https://github.com/weyrick/roadsend-php-raven

== Build ==

rphp uses the CMake build system. Basic *nix instructions:

 * create "build" directory inside of rphp
 * in the build directory, type "cmake .."
 * make

Note that an in-tree build is not recommended, you should create a separate build directory.

== Sample Checkout and Build Session ==

Assuming you have the prerequisites installed, a sample checkout and build session might look like this:

~$ cd rphp
~rphp/$ mkdir build
~rphp/$ cd build
~rphp/build$ cmake ..
(... output ...)
~rphp/build$ make
(... build output ...)


All of the build files (including libraries and executables that are built) will be underneath this build directory.

== Running ==

 '''PLEASE NOTE that code generation is currently disabled while we finish rewriting the front end. Try rphp-analyzer instead!

Before running, setup some environment variables so rphp can find its library files. The following is a .bashrc excerpt, but what's important is to define RPHP_IR_PATH, RPHP_RUNTIME_PATH, and LD_LIBRARY_PATH if you wan to try both compiling and interpreting.

RPHP_PATH=~/rphp
RPHP_IR_PATH=$RPHP_PATH/lib
RPHP_RUNTIME_PATH=$RPHP_PATH/build/runtime/
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$RPHP_RUNTIME_PATH:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
export RPHP_IR_PATH RPHP_RUNTIME_PATH LD_LIBRARY_PATH

The compiler binaries will be located in the build directory in frontend/cli/.
"rphp" is the compiler and JIT interpreter. To execute a source file immediately (using JIT):

$ frontend/cli/rphp -f helloworld.php

To compile to a binary and run native:

$ frontend/cli/rphp helloworld.php
$ ./helloworld

To dump the various passes:
rphp-analyzer --dump-toks <file>
rphp-analyzer --dump-ast <file>
rphp --dump-ir <file>