WeirdPhp

This project aims to add async support to php via dispatching tasks across multiple processes.

Requirements

Weird requires:

• PHP >= 8.2
• Access to pcntl methods (proc_open, proc_get_status, proc_terminate)

Install

composer require jaxwilko/weird-php

Usage

By default, Weird works with the Promise class, you can also pass callable arguments however you will not receive output from them.

use Weird\Promise;

Promise::make(function (Thread $thread) {
    // do some really cool stuff
    $result = 'Hello world';
    return $result;
})
    ->then(function (string $result) {
        echo $result;
        // Prints: Hello World
    })
    ->catch(function (\Throwable $e) {
        // This will catch any exceptions happening parent process, not the child process.
    })

Using the ProcessManager we can dispatch multiple processes across as many processes as we want.

use Weird\ProcessManager;
use Weird\Processes\Thread;
use Weird\Promise;

$manager = ProcessManager::create()
    ->spawn(Thread::class, processes: 1);

$manager->dispatch([
    // Promise 1
    Promise::make(function () {
        return 'hello';
    })->then(fn ($str) => $str . ' world')
        ->then(fn ($str) => echo $str . PHP_EOL),

    // Promise 2
    Promise::make(function () {
        return 'world';
    })->then(fn ($str) => $str . ' hello')
        ->then(fn ($str) => echo $str . PHP_EOL)
]);

When a new process is created, it loses access to the current global scope, meaning that things such as your autoloader will not be loaded, by default Weird will attempt to load your composer autoload file if found. Alternatively you can provide a file to register your autoloader via the withBootstrap() method.

$manager = ProcessManager::create()
    ->withBootstrap(__DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php')
    ->spawn(Thread::class);

Because these processes are being ran async, if you want them to be handled you need to tell the process manager when to check up on them. To wait until all active processes have completed, call wait(). Wait also takes a timeout argument which is in seconds as a float.

$manager = ProcessManager::create()
    ->spawn(Thread::class, processes: 1);

$manager->dispatch(function () {
    // do something
});

$manager->wait(timeout: 0.5);

Alternatively, you can manually call the tick() function, which will check for promises being returned by child processes and process them.

$manager = ProcessManager::create()
    ->spawn(Thread::class, processes: 1);

$manager->dispatch(
    Promise::make(function () {
        // do something
    })->then(function (string $output) {
        // do something else
    })
);

while ($doingSomethingElse) {
    // ...
    $manager->tick();
    // ...
}

Hints

Hint is a special message that can be sent from a process to give you feedback about what is going on.

To send a Hint, you can call the method \Weird\Messages\Events\Hint::send($message).

A Hint handler can be registered by calling registerHintHandler() on the ProcessManager object.

$manager->registerHintHandler(function (mixed $message, Process $process) {
    echo $message;
});

UnknownMessage

Due to how Weird listens to output streams, any data sent via outputting directly to the buffer will be captured as an UnknownMessage. These can be listened for via calling registerUnknownMessageHandler() on the ProcessManager object.

$manager->registerUnknownMessageHandler(function (mixed $message, Process $process) {
    echo $message;
});

Processes

Included in Weird is the Thread process, this allows you to execute multiple async php operations. Most of this documentation outlines the usage of Thread, however you can implement your own ParallelProcess class and spawn it with the ProcessManager.

For example:

class MyCustomProcess extends \Weird\Processes\ParallelProcess
{
    // Define how often tick should be executed in seconds
    protected float $tickRate = 1 / 32;

    public function register()
    {
        // execute startup tasks
    }

    public function read($stdin)
    {
        while ($message = $this->readStream($stdin)) {
            // do something with messages sent from the parent process
        }
    }

    public function tick()
    {
        // do something
    }
}

// ...

$manager = ProcessManager::create()
    ->spawn(MyCustomProcess::class, processes: 5);