>what exactly do you mean by "compile PHP as a servlet"? Isnt PHP written in
>C/C++?
It's written in C and comes with different wrappers for executing it, the
most common being a standalone CGI process or compiled into Apache as a module.
However, there is also a Servlet wrapper, which uses JNI to bind to the
native code. The advantages of using this over the standalone CGI
executable are:
- Speed (a new process does not need to be forked for each request, and the
engine is reused)
- Access to Java objects - PHP can construct objects, access attributes,
methods and properties.
- Request, Response, Session, RequestDispatcher, etc objects available to
PHP page
- Runs in same context. Calls to EJBs do not have to be passed over RMI
The downside to running PHP as a Servlet is that it's tricky to install,
and because it uses JNI it's not protected by the VM.
There will be a howto for setting this up appearing on orionsupport.com
within the next few days if you're interested.
-Joe Walnes
