laravel-typephp

Compile the hot paths of a Laravel application to native code with TypePHP, the AOT PHP-to-C++ compiler from the Swoole team, and load the result as a PHP extension. When the extension is not loaded, the very same files run in the interpreter through Composer's autoloader, so nothing breaks in development, CI, or on a host without the toolchain.

app/Native/Fib.php  --tpc-->  storage/typephp/app_native.so  --extension=-->  App\Native\Fib is an internal class

Measured on PHP 8.4, fib(32) inside a Laravel 13 app:

What this is not

TypePHP compiles a strict, statically typed subset of PHP. It does not support reflection tricks, Closure::bind, variable variables, top-level statements, or most of the dynamic behaviour Laravel's container, Eloquent and facades rely on. This package therefore does not compile the framework or your whole app/. It compiles the code you put in app/Native (or wherever config/typephp.php points): pure computation, parsers, encoders, pricing engines, matrix math, hashing and similar CPU-bound classes that take and return scalars, arrays and plain objects.

Requirements

• PHP 8.4 or 8.5 CLI with headers (php-config), same build that will load the extension
• Laravel 11, 12 or 13 on PHP 8.4+
• The TypePHP compiler: composer require --dev swoole/typephp (it needs Symfony 8, which means Laravel 13; on Laravel 11/12 install the tpc release binary instead and set TYPEPHP_TPC)
• C++17 toolchain: clang or gcc 9+, cmake 3.24+, libgmp-dev, libmpfr-dev
• libphpx built once from vendor/swoole/phpx (see below)

Install

composer require hamdallah90/laravel-typephp
composer require --dev swoole/typephp
php artisan vendor:publish --tag=typephp-config   # optional

Build phpx (the C++ runtime the generated code links against). It must match the PHP that will load the extension:

cmake -S vendor/swoole/phpx -B vendor/swoole/phpx/build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build vendor/swoole/phpx/build --target phpx -j8

On Linux also install it so the dynamic linker finds libphpx.so (the extension carries no rpath there):

sudo cmake --install vendor/swoole/phpx/build && sudo ldconfig

On macOS with Homebrew: brew install php cmake gmp mpfr, pass -Dphp_dir=/opt/homebrew/opt/php to the first cmake call, and skip the install step (the extension gets an rpath to vendor/swoole/phpx/lib).

Use

php artisan typephp:make Fib        # app/Native/Fib.php from a stub that follows the TypePHP rules
php artisan typephp:compile         # storage/typephp/app_native.so
php artisan typephp:status          # is it built? loaded? which classes run native?

Load the extension in every SAPI that should use it (CLI, FPM, Octane workers):

extension=/var/www/app/storage/typephp/app_native.so

or ad hoc: php -d extension=$PWD/storage/typephp/app_native.so artisan typephp:status.

Then just call your classes. No wrapper, no FFI:

use App\Native\Fib;

Route::get('/fib/{n}', fn (int $n) => Fib::fib($n));

LaravelTypePHP\TypePHP::loaded() and TypePHP::isNative(Fib::class) tell you at runtime which path you are on.

Writing native classes

• Classes only. Free functions collide with Composer's files autoloading ("Cannot redeclare function") once the extension is loaded.
• Add use native_types; and type everything. Untyped code compiles but stays on the slow, boxed-value path (at -O3 it was slower than opcache's JIT in our test).
• Do not require the native files yourself. Composer autoloads them only when the extension is absent, which is exactly the fallback you want.
• Everything else: Incompatible PHP features.

Configuration (config/typephp.php)

typephp:compile accepts --optimize=N, --debug, --force, --dry.

Deploying

The .so is tied to the PHP version and platform it was compiled for and needs libphpx.so at runtime. Build on the target platform, or in Docker with the shipped builder image, then copy both libraries to the server (libphpx.so into /usr/local/lib followed by ldconfig):

docker build -f vendor/hamdallah90/laravel-typephp/stubs/Dockerfile -t app-typephp .
docker run --rm -v "$PWD/storage/typephp:/out" app-typephp

The runtime host needs libgmp and libmpfr (apt-get install libgmp10 libmpfr6).

Do not put app/Native in an opcache preload script: preloading requires the files, which redeclares the classes the extension already registered.

Tests

composer install
vendor/bin/phpunit

License

MIT. TypePHP itself is GPL-3.0; it is a build-time tool here and is not bundled.