PHP and C#

This post is not related to OpenTK, but it won't hurt to share it because it involves C# code. I primarily code web applications in PHP due to work reasons, I find PHP to be very practical and easy to work but a great disadvantage of it is that is very slow.

There is a solution though to go to Zend stack, but that is another issue, whether or not to migrate to a Zend server or stick to the classic open source PHP, I won't explore it now.

So a quick and dirty way to get your work done, why not use C# instead. I like C# better as a language than any other like Python, Pearl, C++ so why not use it as a CGI one? One matter though is whether or not your server supports MonoFramework, it seems that FreeBSD has support for Mono (not tested it yet) http://www.mono-project.com/Mono:FreeBSD so it seems that Mono is well respected and currently mature. Last but not least, use a Windows PHP web hosting plan, prices are almost the same.

C# Code: Compile this file and make an executable. Place the executable along with the index.php (or wherever you want as long as the program is accessible)

using System;
 
namespace PhpCsharp
{
 
	class Program
	{
		// http://www.dotnetperls.com/fibonacci
		static int Fibonacci(int n)
		{
			int a = 0;
			int b = 1;
 
			for (int i = 0; i < n; i++)
			{
			    int temp = a;
			    a = b;
			    b = temp + b;
			}
 
			return a;
		}
 
		[STAThread]
		public static void Main(string[] args)
		{
			for (int i = 0; i < 10000; i++)
			{
				Fibonacci(i);
				//Console.Write(Fibonacci(i).ToString() + "<br>");
			}
		}
	}
}

PHP Code: Use this at the "index.php" as the entry-gateway

<?php
 
function phpFibonacci($n) {
	$a = 0;
	$b = 1;
 
	for ($i = 0; $i < $n; $i++) {
		$temp = $a;
		$a = $b;
		$b = $temp + $b;
	}
 
	return $a;
}
 
$timeStart = microtime(true);
print(shell_exec("PhpCSharp.exe"));
$timeTaken = microtime(true)-$timeStart;
print("C# taken: " . $timeTaken . " microseconds<br><br>");
 
 
$timeStart = microtime(true);
for ($i = 0; $i < 10000; $i++) {
	phpFibonacci($i);
}
$timeTaken = microtime(true)-$timeStart;
print("PHP taken: " . $timeTaken . " microseconds<br><br>");
 
?>

Normally in C# you run your program and write the results to console. Then php can actually print any data it receives. For the benchmarking purposes though I disabled any sort of printing (neither C# outputs, neither php) just to get clearer results and not count in any character-stream-transfer timing.

If you are anxious to see the results... I won't keep you waiting.

C# taken: 0.21728301048279 microseconds
 
PHP taken: 11.95049905777 microseconds

There you have it, very simple and effective.

P.S. I guess that this blog post in relation to IronPHP is worthless. :D