Developing Super Fast PHP Server within Minutes

For most of the PHP Server, it is very difficult task to carry out event based programming. In any programming language, events are more than any other function calls. Here, the meaningful code is still blocking.

With various languages like JavaScript; we come to know what PHP can be when event loops are taken at the centre. There are folks who have considered these insights and are then coded into event loops as well as HTTP Servers.

Here, in this blog post from Softqube Technologies; expert PHP developers in India, we will discuss about the process to develop an HTTP Server using PHP where it will be connected to Apache as this will quickly serve the static files.

So, let’s start the process:

Configuring Apache: When browsers request existing files then it is a good decision to serve them without considering the PHP interpreter. Apache is very fast and efficient in serving these files. Hence, here we will configure Apache in such a way that it can handle all the required static requests.

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*) http://%{SERVER_NAME}:9001%{REQUEST_URI} [P]

This code can be placed inside the virtual host entry. It indicates Apache to send requests to missing files to a different port. Simply, we can say that when any browser requests “example.com/robots.txt”, apache will see whether the file exists or not and then it will return without spinning up the PHP interpreter.

In case, the file is not available then Apache will send the request to “http://example.com:9001/robots.txt.”

Simple HTTP Server:

Here, we will see how a server can be made with event loop. The HTTP server can be developed in such a way around the loop that new requests come to us in the form of events. Most of this process is abstracted away.

How to handle different routes?

It is one of the basic HTTP servers that one can create. It receives all the requests. In order to make it more useful, it is necessary to make use of some type of router. One of the widely used routers is League/Route.

The individual requests can then be separated to send more meaningful responses:

Using League Route is one of the methods that decide which route must belong to which request. It is often used alongside Symfony requests and responses. One will need to feed the request method as well as path target to the dispatcher.

Providing Complex Views:

For simple pages, strings are good. However, when one starts to create complicated applications then there may arise a need to use better tool. Here, using League Plates is a good choice. It is a template engine which adds various things like layouts as well as template inheritance on the top of PHP.

Now, the new layout template will be created. This will be from templates/ layout.php.

Wind Up

In this way with the help of any well known frameworks, one can develop a perfect Server quickly. Do you like to share your thoughts with us? Feel free to share with us your experiences while using PHP.