About 2 months ago I sat in on a PHP performance session at work taught by non other than Rasmus Lerdof. Aside from creating PHP he had some really neat stuff to talk about concerning performance. Most of the presentation came from the php.net site, talks.php.net. Take a look at the talks when you have some time.
The question
Anywho…that’s when my benchmarking and optimizing curiosity kicked in. It wasn’t until yet another talk at work concerning the benefits of an MVC framework (Symfony) that I started to think about Zend Framework and its performance out of the box (without caching). So I sat down today and started to benchmark the framework with a simple question in mind, “How does a simple ZF application compare to an application not using it?”
The applications
To answer the question I created 3 web projects. The first web project was a static-HTML only application which displayed “hello world” on the screen, very simple. (For those who just want to see the ab results click here as well as the Xdebug cachegrind output file.)
The second web project was a single PHP file with the below PHP code.
Finally, I replaced the default index.phtml HTML with the simple PHP code shown in Listing 1.1.
Yes some may say that these examples are far too simple, but I wanted to test the Framework’s process to load and what better way to do this than with a very simple example. I also based it off the talk that was given comparing Symfony.
The Hardware & ab command
Here is the set-up.
1. Windows machine running Apache 2.2
2. PHP 5.2.9
3. Zend Framework 1.8.4
4. Pentium 4 3.20 GHz
5. 1Gbs of RAM
I used the Apache Benchmark, ‘ab’, tool which comes included with all Apache installation and ran the below command 3 times.
Listing 1.3 > ab -n 1000 -c 5 http://localhost/index.[html|php]
The results, for me, were very surprising. I have included all the ab outputs.
Observations HTML ONLY – Reading 1
Concurrency Level: 5
Time taken for tests: 2.344 seconds
Complete requests: 1000
Failed requests: 0
Write errors: 0
Total transferred: 352000 bytes
HTML transferred: 83000 bytes
Requests per second: 426.67 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request: 11.719 [ms] (mean)
Time per request: 2.344 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
Transfer rate: 146.67 [Kbytes/sec] received
HTML ONLY – Reading 2
Concurrency Level: 5
Time taken for tests: 2.375 seconds
Complete requests: 1000
Failed requests: 0
Write errors: 0
Total transferred: 352000 bytes
HTML transferred: 83000 bytes
Requests per second: 421.05 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request: 11.875 [ms] (mean)
Time per request: 2.375 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
Transfer rate: 144.74 [Kbytes/sec] received
HTML ONLY – Reading 3
Concurrency Level: 5
Time taken for tests: 2.344 seconds
Complete requests: 1000
Failed requests: 0
Write errors: 0
Total transferred: 352000 bytes
HTML transferred: 83000 bytes
Requests per second: 426.67 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request: 11.719 [ms] (mean)
Time per request: 2.344 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
Transfer rate: 146.67 [Kbytes/sec] received
Observations:
1. Roughly 0.0117 seconds per request.
2. Up to 424.79 requests satisfied per second.
Basic PHP – Reading 1
Concurrency Level: 5
Time taken for tests: 2.609 seconds
Complete requests: 1000
Failed requests: 0
Write errors: 0
Total transferred: 267000 bytes
HTML transferred: 81000 bytes
Requests per second: 383.23 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request: 13.047 [ms] (mean)
Time per request: 2.609 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
Transfer rate: 99.93 [Kbytes/sec] received
Basic PHP – Reading 2
Concurrency Level: 5
Time taken for tests: 2.609 seconds
Complete requests: 1000
Failed requests: 0
Write errors: 0
Total transferred: 267000 bytes
HTML transferred: 81000 bytes
Requests per second: 383.23 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request: 13.047 [ms] (mean)
Time per request: 2.609 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
Transfer rate: 99.93 [Kbytes/sec] received
Basic PHP – Reading 3
Concurrency Level: 5
Time taken for tests: 2.625 seconds
Complete requests: 1000
Failed requests: 0
Write errors: 0
Total transferred: 267000 bytes
HTML transferred: 81000 bytes
Requests per second: 380.95 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request: 13.125 [ms] (mean)
Time per request: 2.625 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
Transfer rate: 99.33 [Kbytes/sec] received
Observations:
1. There seems to be a 100 request (roughly) drop when supporting PHP.
2. Requests per second satisfied = 382.47 (a drop of 42.32 requests or 9% drop)
3. Time per request = 13.073 or 0.0130 seconds per request (Increase of 11%)
Out of the box ZF 1.8.4 – Reading 1
Concurrency Level: 5
Time taken for tests: 68.297 seconds
Complete requests: 1000
Failed requests: 0
Write errors: 0
Total transferred: 197000 bytes
HTML transferred: 11000 bytes
Requests per second: 14.64 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request: 341.484 [ms] (mean)
Time per request: 68.297 [ms] (mean, across a
Transfer rate: 2.82 [Kbytes/sec] received
Out of the box ZF 1.8.4 – Reading 2
Concurrency Level: 5
Time taken for tests: 70.281 seconds
Complete requests: 1000
Failed requests: 0
Write errors: 0
Total transferred: 197000 bytes
HTML transferred: 11000 bytes
Requests per second: 14.23 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request: 351.406 [ms] (mean)
Time per request: 70.281 [ms] (mean, across all c
Transfer rate: 2.74 [Kbytes/sec] received
Out of the box ZF 1.8.4 – Reading 3
Concurrency Level: 5
Time taken for tests: 69.656 seconds
Complete requests: 1000
Failed requests: 0
Write errors: 0
Total transferred: 197000 bytes
HTML transferred: 11000 bytes
Requests per second: 14.36 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request: 348.281 [ms] (mean)
Time per request: 69.656 [ms] (mean, across all c
Transfer rate: 2.76 [Kbytes/sec] received
Observations:
Framework not only has a slower response time but also satisfies less requests per second. Am I doing something wrong???? This cant be correct.
1. Request per second = 15.24 a change of 367.23 requests per second or a drop of 96% between trivial PHP and a ZF power app.
2. Time per request (time taken to satisfy 1 request) = 328.49 ms or 0.328 seconds a change of .315 seconds or an increase of 23%
Conclusion
Even though my benchmarking techniques might be flawed, taking a base line reading with no HTML as well as a very simple PHP script web project allowed me to at least compare.
Based on these figures (if correct) Zend Framework has a HUGE overheard. But this should not discourage any would be ZF coder because there are caching techniques which were not used such as using APC and the benefits of a good network admin
Also the benefits of using any framework far outweigh the drawbacks in my personal opinion. Where else can you get code which has been tested by the best and packed to contain methods for many of our typical coding requests.
A few people we’re having issues installing Zend_Tool on Windows, hell I was having trouble myself since all of the tutorials out there are either Macs or Red Hat based. So dont feel bad if your reading this . I thought i would take some time and create a tutorial, from the ground up and learn a few things myself along the way. So here we go!
Step one Installing PHP (if you havent yet)
If you have PHP already installed skip this section and head over to “An overview of the installation”. Eeryone else, head over to the PHP site, php.net and download the latest and greatest. As of this writing the latest Windows installer is php-5.2.9-2 msi. Download the executable. Yea so what I use executable and you should too its easier to install and configure on Windows.
Once the file downloads, double click the installer, click “next” a few times, and stop when you reach the “Choose Items to Install”.
Choose Items to Install
Once you reach this point your going to check off which extensions you want installed. By default the installer has a few modules turned off but you can easily turn them on by checking off the items to install. Make sure that the “CLI Executable” has no red x marks next to it as shown in the neat picture to the left. If it does click on the “X” and select, “Will be installed on local hard drive”. By doing this your going to installed the php.exe file as well as allow the executable to automatically update and create System Variables. Click “Next”, then “Install” and watch it go.
An overview of the Installation and Required System Variables
When the installation is done you should have a new directory, C:\Program Files\PHP (if you didnt change the default location). This contains the php.exe file along with a number of other things. You should also have some updates to your environment variables. Open the Environment Variables window by right clicking on “My Computer” , “Properties”, “Advanced”, “Environment Variables” . At the bottom of the window you should have 2 System Variables, “Path” and “PHPRC”. Make sure “Path” contains the “C:\Program Files\PHP\;” (Replace with the location of your PHP directory) and make sure PHPRC contains, “C:\Program Files\PHP\” (Location to your php.ini file) . If all the variables are set click “Ok” and head onto the next section.
Verifying Installation.
Now to check that the installation went smoothly. Open a command line window. You do this by going to “Start”, “Run”, and then typing in “cmd”, then click “Ok”. Once the command line window appears type in: php –version
You should see:
If you do great! Your done with PHP. Let’s install Zend Framework now.
Installing Zend_Tool
If all went well, now its time to install Zend_Tool. Download the latest Zend Framework (latest is 1.8.1) and extract the files somewhere onto your system. Move the files
bin/zf.php
bin/zf.bat
into the directory C:\Program Files\PHP and place all the content of the library folder into the C:\zf directory. Many tutorials recommend installing the library in your PHP includes directory but I decided to install it under C:\zf to demonstrate how to use ZEND_TOOL_INCLUDE_PATH environment variable since the library can practically live anywhere when your developing sites. The full path to your Zend Framework instillation is now, C:\zf\library\Zend.
Setting up ZEND_TOOL_INCLUDE_PATH
Open the Environment Variable window again and create a new environment variables under the “System Variables” section. In the “Variable Name” text field enter, “ZEND_TOOL_INCLUDE_PATH” and in the “Variable Value” text field enter “C:\Program Files\PHP\includes\library\” (path to the Zend Library minus the Zend portion). Click ok to close out the “New System Variable” window and then click “ok” once again to close the “Environment Variable” wndow. Time to check if Zend_Tool works.
Verify Installation
If you have any command line windows open, close them and then reopen one. Type in zf show version you should see the below:
Useful commands.
Your set to create your projects , controller, actions now. Below I added a few commands I tend to use.
Create Project
zf create project helloworld
Create a new controller (below commands must be issued within project directory)
zf create controller controller1
zf create controller controller2
Create a few actions
zf create action action1 controller1
zf create action action2 controller2
With the release of the new Zend Framework 1.7.3 a few nuggets were released. One of those nuggets was the extension support for JQuery UI Widgets. Featuring Dialog, Tabs, and Date Selection widgets among other bug fixes. (A full list of updated Zend 1.7.3 release notes can be seen here)
With the release I started to dig into my current projects and started to update my forms. Adding widgets here and there. In the process I learned thing or two and just wanted to share.
Outline
What are we going to cover?
All required Files and packages.
Installation of these files and packages
Examples – Dialog, DatePicker Widgets as well as their API.
Links to helpful readings
Required Files
If you havent download the latest release, 1.7.3, do so now (click her). Once your done downloading unzip the filea nd open the directory extras/library. This is the directory which contains the ZendX folder.
The latest Zend Framework release comes with an additional library, ZendX. These are extensions which are not part of the Core of the framework. Currently the library contains 2 componenets; the JQuery and the Console components.
Copy the ZendX folder into the folder which contains your current installation of the Zend library. On my webserver the directory structure looks like this after I copy ZenX into the directory . (Yes
You now need the JQuery UI library. To take advantage of the latest and greatest your going to need the release candidate (jquery 1.6rc6), download it and unzip it.
Place the files
themes
ui
external
jquery-1.3.1.js
inside your public directory. Your final directory structure should look something similar to this:
Required Files are now installed. Identifying ZendX_JQuery to your Zend Application
Since the ZendX_JQuery is a View_Helper extension and not part of the main library we need to register it as a plugin using the Zend_View addHelperPath() method.
Open your bootstrap file. public/index.php and copy the below script into it.
$view = new Zend_View();
$view->addHelperPath('ZendX/JQuery/View/Helper', 'ZendX_JQuery_View_Helper');
$viewRenderer = new Zend_Controller_Action_Helper_ViewRenderer();
$viewRenderer->setView($view);
Zend_Controller_Action_HelperBroker::addHelper($viewRenderer);
Adding the information to the bootstrap file will allow you to use the ZendX_JQuery throughout your application. From now on the only item you need to include in your View are the styleSheet to implement using the jQuery() addStylesheet()
method and the jQuery() setUriLocalPath() method in your View.
The addStylesheet method will add the stylesheet. If your setup is identical to one shown above you can use the string “/js/themes/base/ui.all.css” to refernce the css file required. (ZF reference manual mentions flora css, i could not find it)
The setURiLocalPath() will add the js library to use. Set it to “/js/ui/jquery.ui.all.js”.
Well get to see how to use these jQuery methods now.
Putting the pieces together – Examples Were going to implement 2 quick examples which will get us started on the right foot by implementing a Date-Picker and a Dialog.
Date Picker
The first example demonstrates the use of the View Helper DatePicker.
The full method accepts 4 parameters with the third parameter accepting an array containing options shown here.
The example shown above adds the stylesheet between the head node and places the js file at the very end of our HTML. Placing the js at the very end of the body is critical to do. Placing it anywhere else will cause mixed results when executing Ajax features.
The example above also demonstrates how to format the date for the specific field using one of the parameters. Go ahead and give it a try, you should see something like the below figure.
Dialog Boxes
A dialog box is the Web 2.0 equivalent of the alert() javascript popup. Using the dialogContainer method we can add a dialog box to our page. Below is an example of a dialog box which uses parameters.
If you tried the example in the ZF Reference manual and didn’t have this work for you. Dont worry, change ‘dialog’ to ‘dialogContainer’ and you should be able to get it working.
jQuery()->setUiLocalPath(”/js/ui/jquery.ui.all.js”);?>
For additional parameters available for the dialogContainer take a look at the JQuery API for the UI widget here. Try out the View, you should see the Dialog window shown below.
Thats it. Set up is done, you know the requirements for the JQuery UI Widgets, and you created 2 widgets. Take a look at some of the links below that helped me get started.
There are a few quarcks i havent figured out yet such as the inability to move the dialog box using FF 3 and currently playnig around with the other widgets so Ill update as I go. Next on the docket. Progress bar and File Uploading using Jquery extension.
Work has been overwhelming lately and frustrating but there was an interesting question asked by one of the developers at work. Can the Zend Framework run without the .htaccess file? The answer, Yes.
Why do we need the .htaccess file
First off why is the .htaccess file required in the first place by Zend Framework? Think of the .htaccess file as a funnel.
In a funnel, you poor water/liquid/stuff into the end contaning the larger diameter. The “stuff” is then squeezed out of a small single point at the opposite end. In the web world the “stuff” is web traffic and the the single point is where all the traffic goes through, in this case its the .htaccess file.
The .htaccess file will send all incoming traffic to your Front Controller which handles routing and dispatching etc.
Removing .htaccess from the process.
For this im going use Apache 2.2. Start off by opening up the httpd.conf file located in the the conf folder of your Apache installation. Somewhere near the bottom add the following lines.
#Application Specific Include file
Include conf/extra/httpd-zf.conf
This will allow Apache to add addition configuration settings once Apache is restarted and its a great place to isolate application specific Apache settings.
Now, go ahead an create the include file, “httpd-zf.conf” inside the APACHE_HOME/conf/extra/ directory and place the ReWrite rules which were originally in your .htaccess file into
it. Hit save, remove the .htaccess file, and restart Apache. You should see your Zend Framework application running.
Why do this?
Speed. Your application must always read the .htaccess file when someone visits the site. Removing this extra layer and placing it into the Web Server itself will reduce the amount of time a page loads.
Last week ZF 1.8 was released and this weekend I spent the better part of it looking through the documentation and over a few of the items released within this package. A few standouts include:
Zend_Tool
Zend_Tag
The Cloud computing components
For more information heres the complete list of features released. I also had a questions for the Zend folks regarding Zend Tool on the page.
Coming up I plan to take a stab at Zend_Tool_Framework_Provider and create a simple example on how use and implement.
Choose Items to Install
