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PHP 5.4's simplified string offset reading


As many of you already know, PHP 5.4 alpha has been released. I have a question regarding the following.

Simplified string offset reading. $str[1][0] is now a legal construct.

How exactly does $str[1][0] work?

EDIT: http://php.net/releases/NEWS_5_4_0_alpha1.txt


Solution

  • This is a side effect, and was mentioned in the proposal here: http://php.markmail.org/thread/yiujwve6zdw37tpv

    The feature is speed/optimization of string offsets.

    Hi,

    Recently I noticed that reading of string offset is performed in two steps. At first special string_offset variant of temporary_variable is created in zend_fetch_dimension_address_read() and then the real string value is created in _get_zval_ptr_var_string_offset().

    I think we can create the real string in the first place. This makes 50% speed-up on string offset reading operation and allows to eliminate some checks and conditional brunches in VM.

    The patch is attached (don't forget to regenerate zend_vm_execute.h to test it). However it changes behavior in one bogus case. The following code now will emit "b" (currently it generates a fatal error - cannot use string offset as an array).

    $str = "abs";
    var_dump($str[1][0]);
    

    I think it's not a problem at all. "b" makes sense because "abs"[1] -> "b" and "b"[0] -> "b".

    I'm going to commit the patch in case of no objections.

    Thanks. Dmitry.