compilefile Extension

EXPERIMENTAL

This extension provides a single function compile_file that accepts a single argument of a file path, that then gets compiled into the PHP engine without executing its code. In that regard it uses the internals for require/include and then throws away executable code.

The primary use case is making the PHP internal Reflection API available to static analysis tools without the risk of accidently executing code that causes side-effects.

<?php

class Foo
{
}

echo "Should not be executed";

<?php

compile_file(__DIR__ . '/test.php');

var_dump(class_exists("Foo"));
var_dump(new \ReflectionClass("Foo"));
var_dump(new Foo());

Prints:

bool(true)
object(ReflectionClass)#1 (1) {
  ["name"]=>
  string(3) "Foo"
}
object(Foo)#%d (0) {
}