Executing PHP scripts with OSU web server.

[jonesd]

I haven't seriously looked at PHP since 2007 (version 4.4.7), but a thread on comp.os.vms nudged me to take another look since VSI has a PHP kit. The SAPI module interface doesn't appear to have changed too much so it wasn't that much work to get the old custom interpreter to build against the 8.0.10 library (PHP$SHR). The reason for the custom interpreter is that it can build the CGI environment directly as PHP variables without the limitations inherent with mapping them to DCL symbols and/or logical names (cgi_symbols.exe).

The attached zip file has 3 files:

• script_code/php_cgilib.c (source file for interpreter)
• script_code/php.opt (linker options file to link php_cgilib.obj with cgilib and PHP$SHR)
• script_code/descrip.mms (updated MMS file to build php.exe and copy to [-.system])

Placing this custom php.exe in www_system should make WWWEXEC.COM automatically use it to process .php files in the exec directory (e.g. /htbin/phpinfo.php). If you want to be more expansive, place php.exe itself in the exec directory (www_root:[bin]) and any .php file accessible to the server can be executed (e.g. /htbin/php.exe/~smith/personal.php).

[arne_v]

I have always assumed that mberryman was him.

Recent thread:

https://forum.vmssoftware.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=9189

[cct]

Ah - missed that one!

[jonesd]

But the ability to build a thread safe version is very old - like 25 years old. Even if VMS C may not build it, then maybe VMS x86-64 clang may build it.

It appears to have gone through a couple iterations of how to support thread safety and tries to accommodate different implementation models, This leaves the code cluttered up with macro invocations such as "SG(request_info).response_code = 200;" (set the thread local global request_info.response_code to a value of 200).

[arne_v]

And we don't have thread local storage.

Code: Select all

$ type tl.c
#include <stdio.h>

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    __thread int v = 123;
    printf("v = %d\n", v);
    return 0;
}
$ cc tl

    __thread int v = 123;
.............^
%CC-E-NOSEMI, Missing ";".
at line number 5 in file DKA0:[arne]tl.c;2

    printf("v = %d\n", v);
.......................^
%CC-E-UNDECLARED, In this statement, "v" is not declared.
at line number 6 in file DKA0:[arne]tl.c;2
$ clang tl.c
tl.c:5:5: error: OpenVMS does not currently support thread_local/__thread/_Thread_local declaration specifiers
    __thread int v = 123;
    ^
1 error generated.

(edited to have the int type)

Added in 1 hour 13 minutes 5 seconds:
And now I remember that VSI has actually told us so:

https://forum.vmssoftware.com/viewtopic ... 157#p21866

[mberryman]

I have never tried to build a thread-safe version of PHP for a few reasons.

1. Doing so requires that the compiler support thread-local storage, which is not currently available on VMS.
2. PHP uses signals and, in a thread-safe version, probably requires them to be thread-specific instead of process-wide.
3. I've never encountered a situation where a threaded version was needed on VMS.

It appears that you have tried Apache and OSU. Have you tried WASD? That is the web server I use and I have been happy with its performance.

[arne_v]

I have not tried WASD but maybe I should.

How does WASD PHPRTE work?

Based on a quick reading of the docs it looks like:
* multiple script processes
* each running an RTE EXE with embedded PHP
* each processing multiple requests for PHP serially

Is that correct?