README
¶
Goro
PHP engine implemented in pure Go. Targets latest PHP (currently 8.5) compatibility.
Why?
PHP is a nice language but is having trouble keeping up with modern languages. This implementation makes a number of things possible:
- Usage of goroutines, go channels, etc from within PHP
- Better caching of compiled code by allowing sharing of compiled or live objects (classes, objects, etc) between running PHP scripts
- Use Go's memory management within PHP
- Ability to run functions or code sandboxed (including filesystem via
fs.FS) to limit security risks - Easily call the PHP engine from Go to execute pieces of PHP code (user provided or legacy)
Install
go install github.com/MagicalTux/goro/sapi/php-cli@latest
Status
Goro passes ~11,770 of 12,110 tests (97.2%) from the PHP 8.5.4 test suite (256 failures in CI). PHP memory_limit enforcement (128MB default). Includes PCRE2 via gopcre2, IANA timezones via gotz, and 9 extensions (session, xml, curl, sockets, zlib, mysqli, sqlite3, bz2).
Language Features
| Feature | Status |
|---|---|
| Variables, constants, type juggling | Done |
| Control flow (if/else/switch/match/for/foreach/while) | Done |
Functions, closures, arrow functions (fn) |
Done |
| Classes, interfaces, traits, abstract classes | Done |
| Enums (PHP 8.1) | Done |
| Namespaces | Done |
| Exceptions (try/catch/finally/throw) | Done |
| Error hierarchy (Error, TypeError, ValueError, etc) | Done |
Null coalescing (??, ??=) |
Done |
Spaceship operator (<=>) |
Done |
Spread operator (...) |
Done |
| Named arguments (PHP 8.0) | Done |
| Match expression (PHP 8.0) | Done |
Nullsafe operator (?->, PHP 8.0) |
Done |
| Readonly properties (PHP 8.1) | Done |
| Fibers (PHP 8.1) | Done |
| Union/intersection types | Done |
DNF types ((A&B)|C, PHP 8.2) |
Partial |
Generators (yield, yield from) |
Done |
First-class callables (strlen(...)) |
Done |
| Property hooks (PHP 8.4) | Done |
| Asymmetric visibility (PHP 8.4) | Done |
| Lazy objects (PHP 8.4) | Partial |
clone ... with (PHP 8.5) |
Done |
| Attributes | Parsed, partially enforced |
SAPIs
| SAPI | Status |
|---|---|
CLI (php-cli) |
Working |
CGI (php-cgi) |
Working |
FPM (php-fpm) |
Working |
HTTP handler (php-httpd) |
Working |
Test runner (php-test) |
Working |
Extensions
| Extension | Functions | Pass Rate | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| standard | 527+ | ~70% | Core functions, arrays, strings, files, math, output buffering, streams |
| ctype | 11 | 100% | Complete |
| json | 5 | 98% | json_encode, json_decode, json_validate, error handling |
| pcre | 11 | 67% | preg_match, preg_replace, preg_split, preg_grep — PCRE2 via gopcre2 (backreferences, lookahead) |
| hash | 14 | 94% | hash, hash_hmac, hash_file, hash_pbkdf2, hash_hkdf, incremental |
| gmp | 49 | 96% | Arithmetic, division, modular, bitwise, primes, GCD/LCM, factorial, operator overloading, import/export |
| mbstring | 49 | 97% | strlen, substr, strpos, strtolower/upper, convert_encoding, detect_encoding, check_encoding |
| date | 48 | 89% | date, time, strtotime, mktime, DateTime, DateTimeImmutable, DateInterval, DatePeriod, DateTimeZone, sunrise/sunset |
| openssl | 16 | — | AES/DES/RSA/ECDSA encryption, signing, key generation via Go crypto |
| bz2 | 2 | — | Compress (gobzip2) and decompress (Go stdlib) |
| zlib | 22 | — | gzcompress/gzencode/gzdeflate, gzip file ops, stream filters, compress.zlib:// |
| session | 19 | — | session_start/id/destroy, file-based storage, $_SESSION superglobal |
| xml | 18 | — | SimpleXMLElement class, xml_parser_create/parse, simplexml_load_string/file |
| curl | 13 | — | CurlHandle class, curl_init/setopt/exec/getinfo via Go net/http |
| sockets | 25 | — | Socket class, socket_create/bind/listen/accept/connect, stream_socket_*, fsockopen |
| mysqli | 25 | — | mysqli/mysqli_result/mysqli_stmt classes, prepared statements, transactions via go-sql-driver/mysql |
| sqlite3 | 20+ | — | SQLite3/SQLite3Result/SQLite3Stmt classes, prepared statements via glebarez/go-sqlite (pure Go) |
| spl | 40+ | 82% | ArrayObject, ArrayIterator, SplFileObject, SplFixedArray, SplHeap, SplObjectStorage, iterators |
| reflection | 8 classes | 75% | ReflectionClass (with __toString), ReflectionMethod, ReflectionProperty, ReflectionFunction, ReflectionParameter, ReflectionAttribute |
| getimagesize | — | 100% | 16 image formats (JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP, WebP, AVIF, HEIF, TIFF, PSD, etc.) |
Not yet implemented
| Extension | Notes |
|---|---|
| PDO | Planned via database/sql (MySQL + SQLite drivers already available) |
| iconv | Planned via golang.org/x/text/transform |
| gd | Image processing |
| intl | Internationalization (ICU) |
| Phar | PHP archive format |
Architecture
Process
A process object is typically created once per runtime environment. It caches compiled code and holds global stream wrapper resources, persistent connections, and runtime cache.
Global
When a request is received or script execution is requested, a new Global context is created. It contains runtime state: global variables, declared functions, classes, constants, output buffers, and memory limits.
Context
Context is a local scope (e.g., within a running function). Global has a root context, and each function call creates a new context to separate variable scope.
Contributing
See development.md for details on writing extensions.
Writing an extension: create a directory in ext/, write functions with magic comment prefixes, run make buildext to generate bindings, and add the extension import to each SAPI's main.go.
Documentation
Source Files
Directories
¶
| Path | Synopsis |
|---|---|
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phpv
Package phpv contains all required types and interfaces for storing Goro values, context or compiled PHP code.
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Package phpv contains all required types and interfaces for storing Goro values, context or compiled PHP code. |
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ext
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sapi
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php-cgi
command
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php-cli
command
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php-fpm
command
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php-httpd
command
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php-test
command
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tools
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buildext
command
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