Using Swoole to Create High-Performance PHP Applications

What is Swoole?

Swoole is a high-performance network communication framework for PHP that provides asynchronous, multi-threading, and coroutine functionality, allowing PHP to handle high-concurrency tasks like Node.js. It supports various protocols such as TCP, UDP, UnixSocket, HTTP, and WebSocket, making it suitable for building high-performance web servers, microservices architectures, real-time communication systems, and more.

Key Features and Advantages of Swoole

• High Performance: Swoole is written in C, exhibits extremely high performance, supports asynchronous IO and coroutines, and can handle high-concurrency requests.
• Rich Features: Supports multiple network protocols, timers, process management, memory management, etc., to meet various development needs.
• User-Friendly: Provides simple and easy-to-use APIs and comprehensive documentation to help developers get started quickly.
• Highly Extensible: Supports custom extensions and plugins, allowing flexible customization based on requirements.

Swoole is an ideal choice for building high-performance web applications and real-time communication systems, suitable for projects ranging from small applications to large enterprise-level systems.

Installing Swoole

In this article, we will introduce how to install and use Swoole in the ServBay environment.

TIP

ServBay recommends developers place their websites in the /Applications/ServBay/www directory for easier management.

Step 1: Install the Swoole Extension

1. Enable the Swoole Extension

   ServBay has the Swoole extension built-in. Users need to enable and restart PHP. Please refer to How to Enable the Swoole Module Provided by ServBay to enable the Swoole module.

Step 2: Create a Project Directory

Create and navigate to the project directory:

cd /Applications/ServBay/www
mkdir servbay-swoole-app
cd servbay-swoole-app

Step 3: Create a Swoole Server Script

Create a server.php file in the project directory and write a simple Swoole HTTP server:

<?php

use Swoole\Http\Server;
use Swoole\Http\Request;
use Swoole\Http\Response;

$server = new Server("0.0.0.0", 9501);

$server->on("start", function (Server $server) {
    echo "Swoole HTTP server is started at http://0.0.0.0:9501\n";
});

$server->on("request", function (Request $request, Response $response) {
    $response->header("Content-Type", "text/plain");
    $response->end("Hello ServBay!");
});

$server->start();

Step 4: Run the Swoole Server

Run the following command in the terminal to start the Swoole server:

php server.php

You will see the following output:

Swoole HTTP server is started at http://0.0.0.0:9501

Step 5: Access the Swoole Server

Open the browser and visit http://localhost:9501, you will see the webpage output Hello ServBay!.

Using Swoole to Handle WebSocket Connections

Swoole also supports the WebSocket protocol, which can be used to build real-time communication applications. We will introduce how to use Swoole to handle WebSocket connections.

Create a WebSocket Server Script

Create a websocket_server.php file in the project directory and write a simple WebSocket server:

<?php

use Swoole\WebSocket\Server;
use Swoole\Http\Request;
use Swoole\WebSocket\Frame;

$server = new Server("0.0.0.0", 9502);

$server->on("start", function (Server $server) {
    echo "Swoole WebSocket server is started at ws://0.0.0.0:9502\n";
});

$server->on("open", function (Server $server, Request $request) {
    echo "connection open: {$request->fd}\n";
});

$server->on("message", function (Server $server, Frame $frame) {
    echo "received message: {$frame->data}\n";
    $server->push($frame->fd, "Hello, {$frame->data}");
});

$server->on("close", function ($ser, $fd) {
    echo "connection close: {$fd}\n";
});

$server->start();

Run the WebSocket Server

Run the following command in the terminal to start the WebSocket server:

php websocket_server.php

You will see the following output:

Swoole WebSocket server is started at ws://0.0.0.0:9502

Connect to the WebSocket Server

You can use a WebSocket client in the browser or other WebSocket client tools (such as wscat) to connect to the WebSocket server.

Connect Using wscat

1. Install wscat:

   npm install -g wscat

2. Connect to the WebSocket server:

   wscat -c ws://localhost:9502

3. Send a message:

   > Hello ServBay

You will see the server return the message:

< Hello, Hello ServBay

Through the above steps, you have successfully created and run a Swoole project, using Swoole's features to handle HTTP requests and WebSocket connections. Swoole's high performance and rich features make it an ideal choice for building high-concurrency applications.