[PHP7] Possible class initialization bug

[filt3rek]

Hej,

I tried hxBit lib and especially the serializer, and I get an exception from hxBit "Too late to register Class" that occurs when a class try to register itself in the Serializer. This registration is called in static public function __hx__init. (a macro injects that).
When I run the serializer, it calls __hx__init when it meet a new class that need to be serialized, but once it's running it's "Too late to register Class".
So in order to make it work, I have to call these classes once by hand before running the hxBit serializer.

@ncannasse : I don't really know if it's a PHP7 plateform's issue or if it's a hxBit behaviour.

[RealyUniqueName]

Could you provide a sample?

[filt3rek]

Hej Alexander !

Thanks for your reply.
It's a bit difficult to isolate that, so I've done as simple and little as possible.

import hxbit.Serializer;

class Entity implements hxbit.Serializable{
	@:s public var id	: Int;
	
	public function new(){}
}

class Garage extends Entity{
	@:s public var name	: String;
	@:s public var cars	(get, null ): Array<Car>;
	
	function get_cars(){
		return [ new Car_Garage().getLink().car ];
	}
	
	public function new(){
		super();
	}
}

class Car extends Entity{
	@:s public var model	: String;
	@:s public var garages	(get, null)	: Array<Garage>;
	
	function get_garages(){
		return [ new Car_Garage().getLink().garage ];
	}
	
	public function new(){
		super();
	}
}

class Car_Garage extends Entity{
	static var _car	= new Car();
	static var _garage	= new Garage();

	public var car		: Car;
	public var garage	: Garage;
		
	public function new() {
		super();
	}
	
	public function getLink(){
		return { car : _car, garage : _garage };
	}
}

class Server{
	public static function main(){
		//new Car_Garage();  <------ If I do that, before running the Serializer it's ok, if not "Too late to register Class"
		
		var car			= new Car();
			car.id		= 1;
			car.model	= "Mustang";
			
		var garage		= new Garage();
			garage.id	        = 1;
			garage.name	= "Monkey";
		
		var cars	= [ car ];
		
		var s	= new Serializer();
			s.begin();
			s.addArray( cars, s.addAnyRef );
		var b	= s.end();
		
		trace( b );
		
		var u	= new Serializer();
			u.setInput( b, 0 );
		var cars	= u.getArray( u.getAnyRef );
		
		trace( cars );

"Too late to register class" comes from here : https://github.com/ncannasse/hxbit/blob/master/hxbit/Serializer.hx#L46
This function registerClass is called from "__hx__init" in every "Entity" instance or sub-instance, so Car, Garage and Car_Garage and is injected by the hxBit Macro : https://github.com/ncannasse/hxbit/blob/master/hxbit/Macros.hx#L664
But As Car_Garage is not explicitly called before, it doesn't enter "__hx__init".
It's called once the serializer do its job and enter the "get_car" or "get_garage", so it's too late.
In order to make it work, I have to call new Car_Garage explicitly by hand before running hxBit Serializer.

In fact, with this little sample I simulate the SPOD (record-macros) behaviour.
Finally I want to see if it's a good idea to use hxBit instead of the haxe.Serializer with imporved performances or not.

So what I wanted to know is if it's a normal PHP 7 behaviour to call __hx__init when creating a new instance, or should it be called even not instanciated ?
I hope it's all understandable...

[RealyUniqueName]

Static fields initialization order is not specified in Haxe. And php target uses lazy loading of classes on the first usage at runtime. Which means static fields initializers are not being executed until a class is used at runtime.
To me, this looks like a hxbit issue.
Maybe hxbit should generate static function __init__() methods, which get executed before static main as required by Haxe specification.

[ncannasse]

I'm often using statics to registers "globals". Would it be possible to have a php-specific function that forces all classes to load ? something like php.Lib.initClasses()

[filt3rek]

@ncannasse Is there a difference between using statics with initial value instead of __init__() ?
I imagine that it's easier to inject a static var using macros than in the __init__ function using macros, but if it's done in __init__ there will even not be necessary to call php.Lib.initClasses() and all Haxe targets will have the same behaviour. Or maybe I miss something, I don't know.

By the way, it's not the right place to talk about that but I've made a little comparaison between haxe.Serializer and hxBit.Serializer on 5000 SPOD (record-macros) objects, serializing and unserializing take 17.6s for haxe.Serializer and 6.3s for hxBit.Serializer on PHP 7 target. I just had to modify a bit hxBit.Serializer in order to make it work with empty instances as created from SPOD.

[RealyUniqueName]

Forcing all classes to load is a bad practice on PHP. It will increase the time required to process each HTTP request on a server.