Re: What style of RPG program can communicate with PHP?

Scott,

With all the contexts that the term "virtual machine" is used these days, I suppose you're right that it could use some clarification. I was using it somewhat loosely to mean a higher-level operating environment that protects the instructions running within it from changes to lower-level environments underneath it and other environments surrounding it; a designated address space which is separate and protected from other address spaces around it, where some form in inter-process communication (normally sockets) is used to interface with programs running in separate environments.

I was not aware that PASE programs could access memory used by ILE programs. You may need to clarify that. My understanding was that PASE "emulated" an AIX environment for running AIX binaries without AIX. I suppose you have a point though, about blurry lines between PASE and the IBM i native virtual machine.

With respect to PHP however, sockets and message interfaces separate it from "native" programs whether the communication is via the HTTP server or a QZDASOINIT job, So the distinction between running PHP on IBM i vs some other platform, and the distinction between an HTTP interface (Web) vs. a QZDASOINIT interface (DB) is not that meaningful. In both cases, you're using a socket and message protocol.

-Nathan





----- Original Message -----
From: Scott Klement <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc:
Sent: Friday, November 30, 2012 12:28 PM
Subject: Re: What style of RPG program can communicate with PHP?

Hmmm... I'm not sure whether to agree or disagree with you here, Nathan.

It's true that the entire system runs in a virtual machine of sorts.
And therefore everything within it can be said to run in a VM.

But, PASE does not run in a virtual machine in the same sort of sense
that Java (for example) runs in a VM.  PASE programs run directly on the
Power Systems architecture, they are compiled for AIX which runs on the
same hardware.

It's possible for PASE programs to directly read memory from ILE
applications, and vice-versa.  Not that I'm recommending that approach,
mind you... but it's possible.

PHP is an interpreted language... so it always runs in the PHP
interpreter.  I suppose you could make the argument that the PHP
interpreter is basically equivalent to a virtual machine... I wouldn't
disagree with that.  But, I think when you say it requires a "virtual
machine", it /sounds/ like you mean a VM in the sense that Java runs in
the Java Virtual Machine.  So I thought it'd be worth adding some
clarification.