The original post: /r/php by /u/ReasonableLoss6814 on 2024-12-16 20:47:45.

(as in, no php files needed to run it), would you use it?

This is already possible in some respects by preloading + opcache, but it is currently quite finicky and slightly undocumented; and it requires the PHP files to be present to use. I’m talking about compiling a PHP file into an executable, directly. No php runtime installed or required, no hidden tricks (like extracting the PHP files into a temporary directory), etc.

Edit: this is often called “ahead of time compilation”