Evaluation of a just-in-time compiler retrofitted for PHP

Programmers who develop Web applications often use dynamic scripting languages such as Perl, PHP, Python, and Ruby. For general purpose scripting language usage, interpreter-based implementations are efficient and popular but the server-side usage for Web application development implies an opportunity to significantly enhance Web server throughput. This paper summarizes a study of the optimization of PHP script processing. We developed a PHP processor, P9, by adapting an existing production-quality just-in-time (JIT) compiler for a Java virtual machine, for which optimization technologies have been well-established, especially for server-side application. This paper describes and contrasts microbenchmarks and SPECweb2005 benchmark results for a well-tuned configuration of a traditional PHP interpreter and our JIT compiler-based implementation, P9. Experimental results with the microbenchmarks show 2.5-9.5x advantage with P9, and the SPECweb2005 measurements show 20-30% improvements. T...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2010
• Where: VEE
• Authors: Michiaki Tatsubori, Akihiko Tozawa, Toyotaro Suzumura, Scott Trent, Tamiya Onodera
• Keywords: Dynamic Scripting Language, JIT Compiler-based Implementation, VEE 2010, Virtualization, Web Application