xphp

What it is

xphp is a superset of php that gives developers real generics, powered by monomorphization at compile time -- one specialized class per concrete instantiation, no runtime dispatch overhead.

In a more inspirational mood, it is a fast lane for the php language, a bridge between what developers need today and what php will support in the future.

Heads up: xphp is heavily inspired by PHP RFC: bound-erased generic types, and the RFC drives the surface syntax -- turbofish Name::<...> at call sites, bare <...> at declarations and type-hint positions, : for bounds. The intent is that any .xphp source you write today stays valid against a future PHP runtime.

Runtime semantics may diverge. xphp monomorphizes each generic instantiation into a distinct, fully-typed class -- the concrete type is baked in and visible to reflection. The RFC erases bounds at runtime instead. Both are honest design choices for different goals, and the gap may widen as the RFC evolves. xphp will track the syntax wherever practical and call out any divergence explicitly in the docs.

How it works

Generics specialize into concrete classes with native typehints the engine enforces, so the safety is real and the abstraction compiles away to nothing.

The compiler turns xphp into regular php. The runtime sees ordinary classes; richer abstractions live entirely in the source you write and at build time.

Ecosystem and community first

The single biggest asset of any programming language is the community and ecosystem around it, much more than its syntax and features.

We believe that meeting a community where it is, respecting their culture, history and work compounds far better than asking them to leave all of that behind.

The design choice to compile to vanilla php is a deliberate commitment to contribute to the php community and its ecosystem.

Principles

Whenever we make an architectural decision, it must be supported by the following non-negotiable principles:

1. Zero Runtime Penalty

Abstractions should not cost performance. By relying on monomorphization rather than runtime reflection hacks, the output is plain php classes. opcache likes that, and execution speed remains identical to handwritten, optimized php code.

2. Maximum Runtime Safety

xphp bakes the types directly into the generated php code. If a boundary is crossed or a third-party plain php library misuses your code, it triggers a native php error. The runtime never lies.

3. Progressive Enhancement

It must play nicely with normal php codebases. A team should be able to write a single xphp file in a php application, compile it, and use it seamlessly.

No custom runtimes, no HHVM style ecosystem splits.

4. Developer Experience

The tooling must be fast and native as in every modern ecosystem. IDEs should be able to read xphp files, while the php runtime happily consumes the compiled php files.

Generics: the start, not the finish line

Adding native generics to php -- a long-awaited php feature -- is genuinely hard work.

The object model that's served the ecosystem for two decades doesn't bend easily.

Supporting generics proves that the compile-to-vanilla model handles non-trivial type-system additions. The remaining features are on the roadmap: type aliases, literal types, mapped and conditional types to name a few.

Quick start

composer require --dev xphp-lang/xphp

Add the autoload mapping to your composer.json and run composer dump-autoload:

{
  "autoload": {
    "psr-4": {
      "XPHP\\Generated\\": ".xphp-cache/Generated/",
      "App\\": ["src", "dist"]
    }
  }
}

Write a generic class and use it:

// src/Collection.xphp
namespace App;

class Collection<T> {
    public function __construct(public T ...$items) {}
    public function first(): ?T { return $this->items[0] ?? null; }
}

// src/Use.xphp
namespace App;

$users = new Collection::<User>(new User('Alice'), new User('Bob'));
echo $users->first()->name;

Compile:

vendor/bin/xphp compile src dist .xphp-cache

That's the whole loop: install, set up autoload, write .xphp, compile. dist/ holds your rewritten code; .xphp-cache/Generated/ holds the specialized classes. Both can be gitignored and rebuilt in CI.

See also

• Getting started -- full walkthrough including PSR-4 details, runtime semantics, and what the generated PHP looks like
• Syntax tour
• Caveats
• Type-system comparison
• Roadmap
• Changelog