Help with calling PHP functions

[My apologies if I am posting on the wrong group...please point me to the right one] I am trying to figure out a way to invoke PHP functions directly i.e. bypassing the PHP compiler (scanner and parser). For now it would be great if I can get some help calling them from C. Ultimately I would like to call them from Java. For e.g. I would like to call: PHP_FUNCTION(str_repeat) It appears to me when stepping thru the invocation path that some compiler and executor globals need to be initialized before one can call these functions. In its raw form these functions do not have the arguments (needed by the function) passed as parameters to the functions call. I need some guidance in this area and recommendations on how to do this Thanks in advance -Dhiru