Arnisoft

How is the performance of magic methods
(__call, __get, __set, …)?

Compared to direct method calls: bad. Here a short benchmark and the code I wrote for this benchmark (needs PHP 5.3):

define('ITERATIONS', 2000000);
    function doBenchmark($name, Closure $closure){
        $start = microtime(true);
        for ($i=0; $i < ITERATIONS; ++$i) {
            $closure();
        }
        $stop = microtime(true);
        echo "Test $name: " . ($stop - $start) . " seconds";
    }

    class Test{
        public $data = array("view" => "view", "test2" => "test2", "test3" =>"test3");

        public function getView(){
            return $this->data['view'];
        }

        public function __call($name, $arg){
           return $name=="_getView" ? $this->data['view'] : false;
        }

        public function __get($key){
            return array_key_exists($key, $this->data) ? $this->data[$key] : null;
        }
    }

    $t = new Test();
    doBenchmark("Methode Call", function(){
        global $t;
        $v = $t->getView();
    });

    doBenchmark("Direct Access", function(){
        global $t;
        $v = $t->data['view'];
    });

    doBenchmark("Magic Methode (__call)", function(){
        global $t;
        $v = $t->_getView();
    });

    doBenchmark("Magic Methode (__get)", function(){
        global $t;
        $v = $t->view;
    });

So, you get the picure

Don’t use magic methods as a replacement for a regular method if a direct access to a field or variable is possible. Magic methods are the sugar for dynamic created attributes (eg. for database objects) or if you don’t know the method/attribute while writing the code.

Use magic methods only rarely.

The only special magic method you should use often: __autoload It helps to load your needed classes on demand only when they are needed. If you use namespaces, here a short trick to load the name-mangled classes (the $path must of course be changed to your needs):

function __autoload($class) {
    $parts = explode('\\', $class);
    $class = end($parts);
    $path = __DIR__ . "/includes/"); //path for the includes

     require ($path . $class . ".php");
}

Happy coding

VirtualBox vs VMware: part 2010

Because the free Vmware Player now supports also the creating of virtual machines, it’s
time to make another short benchmark.

Windows 7 Performance Index

Crystal Disk Mark 3.0

Summary

There is no difference for the computing performance. VirtualBox and VMware playing at the same level.
For graphic performance/support VMware wins. VirtualBox 3D support is only rudimentary and does not work for Windows Airo (so the bad performance index for graphics).
The disk/caching performance of VMware is better.

The overall performance of VMware Player is better then VirtualBox.
If you need 3D support eg. for Windows 7 Airo as a guest, VMware is the only solution.
If you need snapshots VirtualBox wins, for such features you need VMware Workstation.

I will give you a idea about the easy implementation of error page handling with Nginx.

1. Setting error handler

Error handler can be set with the error_page directive. More about this directive you can find here.

Do this in your server block but better use a generic file and include this in every virtual host server block. I use for this a file “vhost” with all such settings.

The handler or html files are placed in a separate folder outside the webs. You can use a folder inside your Nginx settings (I use here for example a “html” folder).

The location block is needed to pass the correct root and file to php fastcgi. In this example I use a file “fastcgi”  with this mostly used lines:

fastcgi_pass   unix:/tmp/fastcgi.socket;
fastcgi_index  index.php;
fastcgi_param  SCRIPT_FILENAME  $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
include fastcgi_params;

Here the part in the server block (or in your generic vhost file for including):

# error handler, codes can also be combined
error_page 401 /error.php?c=401;
error_page 403 /error.php?c=403;
error_page 404 /error.php?c=404;
error_page 500 /error.php?c=500;
error_page 502 503 504 /error.php?c=50x;

# serve error.php from /etc/nginx/html folder
location =/error.php {
   root /etc/nginx/html;
   include conf/fastcgi;
}

2. PHP file

The error.php file will be called with the URL encoded error-code, so its easy to grab this code in the PHP file from the superglobal $_GET array.

To map this error code to a message string, use a associative array and a function to return the string.

This is the part in the error.php file:

 "Autorisierung erforderlich! - Authorization Required",
    "403" => "Zugriff ist nicht erlaubt! - Access forbidden",
    "404" => "Seite wurde nicht gefunden - Page not found",
    "500" => "Interner Serverfehler - Internal Server Error",
    "50x" => "Seite ist momentan nicht verfügbar. Bitte Anfrage später wiederholen.
-
The page is temporarily unavailable. Try again later.");

// get the error string
function errorString($error) {
    global $_err;

    foreach ($_err as $key => $val) {
        if ($key == $error)
            return $val;
    }

    return "Unknown Error";
}

isset($_GET['c']) or die("Unknown Error");
$error = $_GET['c'];
$str = errorString($error);

?>

Error <?=$error?>: <?=$str?>

You can format the error page as you like. But remember: the web root url will be the actual virtual host! Easiest way: use inline CSS. If this is not your preferred way, place the css file in a virtual host (eg. your default virtual host)

This configuration is used to access phpmyadmin as a “subfolder” of the domain like:

http://mysite.com/phpmyadmin

The location will be append to the root! For a similar behaviour like the Apache configuration, you could use the “alias” directive

My phpmyadmin installation is under /usr/share/phpmyadmin, thats why I use /usr/share as the root.

server{
...
    location /phpmyadmin{
        root    /usr/share;
        index   index.php;
    }

    location ~ \.php$ {
        set $php_root   $document_root;
            if ($request_uri ~* /phpmyadmin) {
                set $php_root /usr/share;
           }

        fastcgi_pass   unix:/tmp/fastcgi.socket;
        fastcgi_index  index.php;
        fastcgi_param  SCRIPT_FILENAME  $php_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        include /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params;
    }
}

Quick Benchmark of Apache, Nginx, Cherokee, Lighttpd

A short benchmark of this 4 server with dynamic and static content.
All server provides the same functionality like URL rewriting, password protected folders/files etc. but all have their own way to do that
For shared hosting where the user has no access to the server configuration, Apache with the .htaccess file support is a good choice.

I used the benchmark tool from Apache ab -n 50000 -c 20
php-cgi goes over a Unix socket

Dynamic Content (PHP)

Static content (14785 Bytes HTML file)

More “real live” test with PHP and eAccelerator enabled

Cherokee/NGinx/Lighttp are using the same php-fpm socket

Results

There is a small difference between fast-cgi and php-fpm (alternative implementation of fast-cgi).
You should prefer php-fpm (will be included in PHP 5.4 or you must build it manually from source).

Apache and Cherokee are both excellent for dynamic content.

For static content Lighttp is the fastest server.

There is not _the_ best server but a good combination: Lighttpd or Nginx as a proxy for serving static content, Apache or Cherokee for the dynamic content. Or a another proxy server like Varnish for static content and caching and Apache/Cherokee for serving dynamic content

For a PHP site with only 1 server running: Apache.

For a smaller memory footprint and if .htaccess is not needed: Cherokee (also the only server with a very good graphical admin interface)

Benchmark VirtualBox 2.1.4 vs VMware Workstation 6.5.1

Host: Ubuntu64, 4GB RAM, Core2Duo E6600, Samsung HD502IJ
Guest: Windows XP Home, 1GB RAM, 8GB virtual disk
Benchmark Software: SiSoft Sandra Light, HD Tune

Short benchmark of this both VM

*) Dual CPU Mode

Resumee

VirtualBox shows better computing performance, which benefits for desktop applications and multmedia based operations. Interesting: the dual CPU mode in Vwmare has no advantage over the single CPU mode.
Certainly we can say: Virtualbox for desktop applications, Vmware for server but for the combined performance VMware ist the winner.

The difference

Don’t forget: Flash != Flex. Flex uses elements from Flash but is built on own classes. If Flash and Flex should play together we need a interface.
MovieClip is a display object in Flash and UIComponent is a display object in Flex. But we can wrap a MovieClip into a UIComponent, so the Flex UIComponent becomes a container for our Flash MovieClip.
Here both files, at first the MXML file:

And the Actionscript file with the class:

package {
	import mx.core.Application;
	import mx.core.UIComponent;
	import flash.display.MovieClip;

	/*****************************************************************
	 * File: FlexApp.as
	 *****************************************************************/

	public class FlexApp {
		private var _app:Application;

		public function FlexApp(app:Application) {
			_app=app;

			var btn:MovieClip=new BtnStop();
			var flexui:UIComponent=new UIComponent;
			flexui.addChild(btn);
			app.addChild(flexui);
		}

		static public function initApp():FlexApp {
			return new FlexApp(Application(Application.application));
		}

		public function get app():Application {
			return _app;
		}
	}
}

How it works

applicationComplete in the MXML file is the eventhandler called from the application. Here we provide our handler, which must be a static member function of a class so it can be called later.

initApp() creates our class and passes a application object to the constructor.

Inside the constructor we create the MovieClip from the imported Flash symbol “BtnStop” (this symbol comes from a swc lib, created with Flash). Then we create a Flex UIComponent container and add our MovieClip as a child. The UIComponent can now be added as child of the Flex application.

Overview of development tools for Flash/Flex

FlexBuilder3 is based on Eclipse 3.3.1 and doesn’t work unfortunately with Eclipse 3.4.1 “Ganymede”.
But Eclipse “Ganymede” has a feature for easy integration of plugins called “dropins”, therefore under Eclipse 3.4.1 exist a “dropin” folder…

Close Eclipse and copy the complete Flexbuilder folder (standalone or plugin) inside this “dropin” folder. Restart Eclipse and now you should have the complete Flexbuilder envoirenment available!
Flexbuilder can be found with the default installation path at C :\Program Files\Adobe.

A short comparison of Flexbuilder3 with FlashDevelop 3

My recommendation:

For debugging, visual design of MXML: FlexBuilder
For mostly coding of Actionscript under Windows: FlashDevelop.