Can PHP be dynamically loaded and called from a C program?

[Thomas Gagne]

I anticipate wanting PHP to evaluate a lot of expressions and would
rather not create subprocesses to do it from inside my C program.

I've googled around for calling PHP from C, and know Apache does it, but
my C program won't have a full Apache environment. Can the libphp.so be
used otherwise?

[NC]

Re: Can PHP be dynamically loaded and called from a C program?

Thomas Gagne wrote:[color=blue]
>
> I anticipate wanting PHP to evaluate a lot of expressions and would
> rather not create subprocesses to do it from inside my C program.
>
> I've googled around for calling PHP from C, and know Apache does it,
> but my C program won't have a full Apache environment. Can the
> libphp.so be used otherwise?[/color]

No, but there is a command-line PHP interpreter that you can
use without Apache or any HTTP server whatsoever.

Cheers,
NC

[Andy Hassall]

Re: Can PHP be dynamically loaded and called from a C program?

On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 10:25:20 -0500, Thomas Gagne <tgagne@wide-open-west.com>
wrote:
[color=blue]
>I anticipate wanting PHP to evaluate a lot of expressions and would
>rather not create subprocesses to do it from inside my C program.
>
>I've googled around for calling PHP from C, and know Apache does it, but
>my C program won't have a full Apache environment. Can the libphp.so be
>used otherwise?[/color]

Looks like it's possible; although a bit tricky to search for, since most hits
for "embedding php" come up with embedding PHP in HTML in a webserver-parsed
page.

The trail seems to start here:

http://www.zend.com/lists/php-dev/200209/msg01063.html

--
Andy Hassall / <andy@andyh.co. uk> / <http://www.andyh.co.uk >
<http://www.andyhsoftwa re.co.uk/space> Space: disk usage analysis tool

[Chung Leong]

Re: Can PHP be dynamically loaded and called from a C program?


"Thomas Gagne" <tgagne@wide-open-west.com> wrote in message
news:OY6dned3Q4 TF7tTfRVn-pA@wideopenwest .com...[color=blue]
> I anticipate wanting PHP to evaluate a lot of expressions and would
> rather not create subprocesses to do it from inside my C program.
>
> I've googled around for calling PHP from C, and know Apache does it, but
> my C program won't have a full Apache environment. Can the libphp.so be
> used otherwise?[/color]

You will never be able to use libphp.so without building Apache into your C
program. The PHP module calls a number of functions within Apache. Unless
you implement your own version of these, the dynamic library will not even
load.

Writing a PHP module that encapsute your C code is the better approach.

[Colin McKinnon]

Re: Can PHP be dynamically loaded and called from a C program?

NC wrote:
[color=blue]
> Thomas Gagne wrote:[color=green]
>>
>> I anticipate wanting PHP to evaluate a lot of expressions and would
>> rather not create subprocesses to do it from inside my C program.
>>
>> I've googled around for calling PHP from C, and know Apache does it,
>> but my C program won't have a full Apache environment. Can the
>> libphp.so be used otherwise?[/color]
>
> No, but there is a command-line PHP interpreter that you can
> use without Apache or any HTTP server whatsoever.
>[/color]

Is there a reason why you (OP) specificaly want to embed PHP? If all you
need is an embedded scripting language, both TCL and python have a long
pedigree in this department.

HTH

C.

[Andy Hassall]

Re: Can PHP be dynamically loaded and called from a C program?

On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 02:43:18 -0500, "Chung Leong" <chernyshevsky@ hotmail.com>
wrote:
[color=blue]
>"Thomas Gagne" <tgagne@wide-open-west.com> wrote in message
>news:OY6dned3Q 4TF7tTfRVn-pA@wideopenwest .com...[color=green]
>> I anticipate wanting PHP to evaluate a lot of expressions and would
>> rather not create subprocesses to do it from inside my C program.
>>
>> I've googled around for calling PHP from C, and know Apache does it, but
>> my C program won't have a full Apache environment. Can the libphp.so be
>> used otherwise?[/color]
>
>You will never be able to use libphp.so without building Apache into your C
>program. The PHP module calls a number of functions within Apache. Unless
>you implement your own version of these, the dynamic library will not even
>load.[/color]

That's exactly what the embed SAPI is for. Clearly it's possible to load PHP
into an executable without Apache being involved at all - else running PHP
under IIS would be impossible.

The embed SAPI, from the looks of it, fills all the gaps usually provided by a
webserver's API, allowing PHP to be called from arbitrary C programs.

It's woefully underdocumented and from a few minutes playing with it I've not
got it to actually link properly yet, but the principle looks sound.

--
Andy Hassall / <andy@andyh.co. uk> / <http://www.andyh.co.uk >
<http://www.andyhsoftwa re.co.uk/space> Space: disk usage analysis tool

[Chung Leong]

Re: Can PHP be dynamically loaded and called from a C program?

"Andy Hassall" <andy@andyh.co. uk> wrote in message
news:l7cm4151m9 6ns5auc5331dncu ojbo44438@4ax.c om...[color=blue]
> On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 02:43:18 -0500, "Chung Leong"[/color]
<chernyshevsky@ hotmail.com>[color=blue]
> wrote:
>[color=green]
> >"Thomas Gagne" <tgagne@wide-open-west.com> wrote in message
> >news:OY6dned3Q 4TF7tTfRVn-pA@wideopenwest .com...[color=darkred]
> >> I anticipate wanting PHP to evaluate a lot of expressions and would
> >> rather not create subprocesses to do it from inside my C program.
> >>
> >> I've googled around for calling PHP from C, and know Apache does it,[/color][/color][/color]
but[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
> >> my C program won't have a full Apache environment. Can the libphp.so[/color][/color][/color]
be[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
> >> used otherwise?[/color]
> >
> >You will never be able to use libphp.so without building Apache into your[/color][/color]
C[color=blue][color=green]
> >program. The PHP module calls a number of functions within Apache. Unless
> >you implement your own version of these, the dynamic library will not[/color][/color]
even[color=blue][color=green]
> >load.[/color]
>
> That's exactly what the embed SAPI is for. Clearly it's possible to load[/color]
PHP[color=blue]
> into an executable without Apache being involved at all - else running PHP
> under IIS would be impossible.
>
> The embed SAPI, from the looks of it, fills all the gaps usually provided[/color]
by a[color=blue]
> webserver's API, allowing PHP to be called from arbitrary C programs.
>
> It's woefully underdocumented and from a few minutes playing with it I've[/color]
not[color=blue]
> got it to actually link properly yet, but the principle looks sound.
>[/color]

IIRC, libphp.so is the name of the mod_php binary. I could be wrong though.

[Thomas Gagne]

Re: Can PHP be dynamically loaded and called from a C program?

Colin McKinnon wrote:[color=blue]
> NC wrote:
>
>[color=green]
>>Thomas Gagne wrote:
>>[color=darkred]
>>>I anticipate wanting PHP to evaluate a lot of expressions and would
>>>rather not create subprocesses to do it from inside my C program.
>>>
>>>I've googled around for calling PHP from C, and know Apache does it,
>>>but my C program won't have a full Apache environment. Can the
>>>libphp.so be used otherwise?[/color]
>>
>>No, but there is a command-line PHP interpreter that you can
>>use without Apache or any HTTP server whatsoever.
>>[/color]
>
>
> Is there a reason why you (OP) specificaly want to embed PHP? If all you
> need is an embedded scripting language, both TCL and python have a long
> pedigree in this department.
>[/color]
I've a business-rule engine written in Smalltalk that exists in such a
way that any language could be used to describe a rule. Because we've
PHP programmers on-staff I thought PHP would be a valuable extension.
Since Smalltalk can call C library functions I thought that might be one
way to talk to PHP. So in essence, calling C from inside PHP doesn't
work because I want to get into PHP from the outside.

Thanks for the reminders on Python and TCL. With both being open-source
I could theoretically load these and allow access to Smalltalk objects
from within them. That would be especially cool for Python.