GSOC 2017 Project: Improving Xapian's PHP Bindings

[Olly Betts]

Hi Nihal,

On Fri, Feb 17, 2017 at 04:20:15PM +0530, Nihal N wrote:
> If i'm not wrong, there are two parts of the project.

The idea lists 3 parts - there's also:

| The final part would be updating Getting Started with Xapian for the
| changes, and adding PHP versions of the example code which hasn't yet
| been translated to PHP.

The ideas are really just that - ideas - and it's OK to adapt them and
add or remove parts as you turn the idea into your proposal, though
you'll need to convince us that what you propose is of a suitable scope
for the time available given your skills and experience, and that it's
a sensible combination of thinks to work on.  We expect that the
projects should include test coverage and appropriate documentation, and
updating the Getting Started guide fulfils the latter nicely.

>  - Reimplementing SWIG's PHP backend using PHP/Zend C API. (I am looking
> into the PHP/Zend C API, if there are any more resources that I can read on
> this)

The project idea links to some resources.  The first was written before
PHP7 and PHP7 made some changes to this API, so it is now wrong in the
details, but as an overview it's still useful.  I don't know of a good
direct equivalent for PHP7 (if you find one, do let us know).

>  - Making the binding look more PHP like. (With the double floating point
> argument problem and PHP namespaces)

Note those are just some examples of the sort of changes.  I'd suggest
investigating the current PHP API for Xapian with a critical eye to
identify places where it doesn't look natural to someone used to coding
in PHP.

> Before jumping into this project, I'd like to get to know the code base. I
> have built the project and was looking at ticket #159, should be able to
> introspect the query object. It'll be great If anyone could help me start
> up with this.

I'd suggest looking at the query introspection methods that exist
currently and how they're implemented as a first step.

> And would also like to know if IRC is best for these project
> related discussions or the mailing-list. I know this doesn't ease up on the
> project at hand, but I want to get to know the code base a little.

You can ask questions on IRC or the mailing list - which is best depends
on what some of questions you're asking (IRC is good for short questions
and interaction; mailing list better if you need to describe a complex
situation in detail) and whether you're able to stay on IRC long enough
to get an answer - we aren't all at our computers 24 hours a day, so you
may have to wait several hours until somebody who can answer is around.

Cheers,
    Olly