Introduction¶

This projects originates from the following facts:

• PHP streams form a powerful toolbox, with oft-underrated features (custom streams, custom filters, etc.)

• The PHP approach to streams interactions closely follows that of C, to the point that the function names are often the same (fread(), fwrite(), etc.)

  Developpers who are not accustomed to C may find it difficult to work with PHP streams (eg. dealing with partial reads/writes).

• Though powerful, the API can be quite difficult to master for beginners or even seasoned developers. The implementation also comes with several annoying limitations,

  For example, the stream_select() function is very useful when working with non-blocking streams, until you start using stream filters and realize that it does not work for filtered strems.

  This can lead to confusion or even frustration on the part of PHP developers.

• Last but not least, combining multiple projects each using streams can prove to be a real challenge (eg. each project expects to be able to run an endless stream_select() loop, leaving no way for other libraries to do their share of the job)

The PHP stream manager was created as an attempt to get rid of some of these hindrances by providing:

• A common framework for libraries to build upon, so that multiple projects can be used together without fear of conflicts related to stream management.
• A simple approach to stream management, using callback functions to handle various events (incoming data, disconnections, ...)
• An abstraction layer that adds support for filtered streams in stream_select(), while still retaining the original PHP stream API (eg. so that things like stream_filter_append() still work the same way)