How native lazy objects will change Doctrine and Symfony forever

Starting with PHP 8.4 you can implement lazy loading and proxy objects with native PHP functionality with little overhead and no code generation required. Both Doctrine and Symfony are historically using the proxy pattern with solutions and workarounds built in PHP. In this talk I will explain PHPs 8.4s native lazy objects and how it will be a game changer to both Doctrine and Symfony going forward.

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1. Benjamin Eberlei How native lazy objects will change Doctrine and Symfony forever
2. What are Lazy Objects?
3. Mental Model: Think of lazy objects as deferring the construction of an object to the first point where it’s actually used.
4. Lazy Loading in a Nutshell
5. Lazy Loading in a Nutshell
8. SELECT name FROM user WHERE id = 1
9. Implemented in Doctrine since 2010 with Code Generation
10. ❌ get_class($proxy) === User::class ❌ final class User ⚠️ readonly & Property Hooks ❌ No code generation ✅ same object comparison (===)
11. Benjamin Eberlei Doctrine Core Team The PHP Foundation Tideways /@TidewaysPHP
13. How to implement Lazy Objects in PHP alone?
19. After initialization, the object is indistinguishable from an object that was never lazy.
20. ✅ get_class($proxy) === User::class ✅ final class User ✅ readonly & Property Hooks ✅ No code generation ✅ same object comparison (===)
21. The proxy object is _not_ replaced or substituted for the real instance. After initialization, property accesses on the proxy are forwarded to the real instance.
22. ✅ get_class($proxy) === User::class ✅ final class User ✅ readonly & Property Hooks ✅ No code generation ⚠️ same object comparison (===)
23. Initialization Triggers Reading or writing a property Testing if a property is set or unsetting it Calling ReflectionProperty::get[Raw]Value() and set[Raw]Value() Calling ReflectionObject::getProperties() or ReflectionObject::getProperty() Cloning
24. The following special cases do not trigger initialization of a lazy object: Calls to get_mangled_object_vars() serialize(), var_dump() in some cases Casting to array using the (array) operator. Calls to ReflectionObject::__toString().
27. Can we do more?
28. There are four more things
37. Symfony Dependency Injection: Services Lazy by Default?
39. THANK YOU E-Mail: Benjamin@Tideways.com YouTube.com/@TidewaysPHP