Re: Translatting php to binary...

>PHP is a scripting language I am pretty much >aware of that... But is there a way to translate >php into binary/machine code or would one >have to write a translator program? The Zend Encoder (http://zend.com) is a commercial product which is designed to protect proprietary code, and as part of its current protection scheme, I believe it turns PHP into a binary byte-code representation. It may or may not do even more to encrypt the source/binary at some point in the future, or even now, since I haven't played with it in awhile... There are other alternatives, but last time I checked they really weren't "on par" to Zend Encoder for reliability, useability, etc. Again, I haven't looked hard at this stuff for over a year. YMMV. NOTES: If somebody *REALLY* wants to sit there and dis-assemble your Zend encoded (or any other) binary, they can, but it would probably be easier to run it and reverse-engineer the behaviour in 99.9999% of the cases. You will also want a CLEAR license, which is much more important than any technological hardware/software dongle/boondogle/whatever that's supposed to protect your code. If you're thinking you'll get better performance this way, you won't -- At least not enough to make it worth it. The Zend Engine (the guts of the PHP parser) is quite zippy, and is not a significant drain on performance. Some quick hacks to your Apache and PHP C sources will prove this, or you can just trust me that the Zend Encoder does not significantly improve performance. The Zend Cache *WILL* double (minimum) your throughput, however, primarily by keeping your PHP scripts in RAM, so the hard drive isn't accessed. The Cache also turns your code into byte-code, and that helps a little, but binary representation alone won't help performance significantly. Disclosure: I used to work for Zend, often answering these very questions as a Booth Bunny. :-) YMMV. -- Like Music? http://l-i-e.com/artists.htm