[PHPForumParis2022] A Rusty PHP Extension – Pierre Tondereau
Pierre Tondereau, a developer with a passion for exploring new technologies, captivated attendees at PHP Forum Paris 2022 with his engaging exploration of creating PHP extensions using Rust. Drawing from his personal journey of discovering Rust in 2021, Pierre shared a compelling narrative about leveraging this modern language to enhance PHP’s capabilities. His presentation, rooted in a practical experiment, highlighted Rust’s potential to improve security and streamline development, offering a fresh perspective on extending PHP’s functionality.
Why Rust for PHP Extensions?
Pierre began by introducing Rust, a language developed by Mozilla in 2015 to refactor their HTML rendering engine, prioritizing performance and memory safety. Unlike traditional PHP extensions written in C, which demand meticulous memory management to avoid security vulnerabilities, Rust offers robust safety guarantees. Pierre explained how Rust’s design eliminates common issues like null pointer dereferences, making it an appealing choice for PHP developers unfamiliar with C’s complexities. He emphasized that his goal was not to rewrite PHP’s virtual machine but to create a secure, efficient extension using the ext-php-rs crate.
Building and Distributing Extensions
Delving into the technical process, Pierre outlined how the ext-php-rs crate simplifies PHP extension development by abstracting the Zend API. He demonstrated wrapping Rust APIs for PHP userland, using tools like cargo-php to streamline building and installation. Pierre highlighted the crate’s comprehensive coverage, which handled his use case effectively, though he encouraged community feedback to expand its capabilities. By automating distribution, Rust enables developers to integrate extensions seamlessly, enhancing PHP’s ecosystem with minimal friction.
Security and Future Potential
Concluding, Pierre underscored Rust’s security benefits, citing its ability to prevent memory-related vulnerabilities that plague C-based extensions, such as those impacting Google Chrome. He referenced Microsoft’s 2019 shift toward prioritizing security over performance, reinforcing Rust’s relevance. Pierre invited developers to explore his GitHub repository and contribute to ext-php-rs, fostering a collaborative push toward safer, more reliable PHP extensions. His talk inspired attendees to consider Rust as a viable tool for modernizing PHP development.