Make all functions static methods

[BackEndTea]

I'd like to implement this library in one of my projects, but i'm a bit worried about the added overhead of all the files, when i won't use 90% of them.

So my proposal would be to change all the functions and add as static methods to classes.

So instead of calling Safe\getcwd(); I would call Safe\Dir::getcwd();. This means that the classes can be added to the autoloader through psr-4, and they won't be loaded unless needed.

I understand that this would be a big BC break, but i think it has some benefits to take this approach.

[moufmouf]

Hey @BackEndTea ,

We actually spent quite some time wondering if I should go with the functions or the classes approach.

Indeed, there is no functions autoloading in PHP, so all the files must be loaded upfront.

What I really wanted to do with Safe was to write a library that was really easy to add and that did not disrupt your source code. You can simply add a single line (use function Safe\getcwd) and it magically works. Someone looking at the code without looking at the headers might not even notice it is there.

But I was indeed a bit afraid of the performance issue. I don't no if you have seen it, but we recently made some performance benchmarks: https://github.com/thecodingmachine/safe/blob/master/performance/README.md

Loading Safe functions takes ~700µs. I don't know your particular use case, but for all the applications I have been writing, this is really an overhead I can cope with.

If you are looking for extreme performance, maybe you can have a look at other libraries that are doing similar things. For instance, nette/utils are wrapping most of the PHP functions in classes. They are throwing exceptions instead of returning false, but they also do much more (like reordering $needle and $haystack...) They do not cover as many functions as Safe do, but it's definitely a package worth checking!

[BackEndTea]

Thanks for the reply @moufmouf. I missed the benchmark, and I assumed the performance hit would be much more than just 700µs. A hit that small is something I should be able to cope with.