Advanced terms
Ports & Adapters (PHP Worked Example)
PHP 7.0+
Hexagonal Architecture in PHP — the application core exposes ports (interfaces), and adapters implement them for HTTP, CLI, databases, and external services.
6mo ago
Architecture advanced
Post-Quantum Cryptography
3
CRYSTALS-Kyber (ML-KEM) and CRYSTALS-Dilithium (ML-DSA) standardised by NIST in 2024 — designed to resist attacks from quantum computers.
6mo ago
Cryptography advanced
PostgreSQL VACUUM & ANALYZE
PHP 5.0+ VACUUM reclaims storage from dead tuples created by MVCC updates and deletes. ANALYZE updates query planner statistics. Both are essential for PostgreSQL performance.
6mo ago
Database advanced
Property Hooks (PHP 8.4)
PHP 8.0+
PHP 8.4 property hooks attach get and set logic directly to a property declaration — co-locating validation and transformation with the property itself.
6mo ago
PHP advanced
Pessimistic vs Optimistic Locking
PHP 5.0+ Pessimistic locking acquires a database lock upfront preventing conflicts. Optimistic locking detects conflicts at write time using a version column — trading lock overhead for conflict detection.
6mo ago
Database advanced
PHAR Archives & Packaging
PHP 5.2+
4
PHP's native archive format for self-contained distributable applications — like a JAR file for Java — with a bootstrap stub and compressed contents.
6mo ago
PHP advanced
PHAR Deserialization Attack
PHP 5.0+
1
PHP's phar:// stream wrapper triggers deserialization of PHAR metadata on any file operation, enabling PHP object injection without unserialize().
CWE-502 OWASP A8:2021
6mo ago
Security advanced
9.8
PHP FFI
PHP 7.4+
1
Foreign Function Interface — allows PHP to call C library functions and use C data structures directly, enabling integration with native libraries without writing a PHP extension.
6mo ago
PHP advanced
PHP JIT — When It Helps (and When It Doesn't)
PHP 8.0+
1
PHP 8.0's JIT compiler converts hot bytecode to native machine code — significant for CPU-bound code, but minimal for typical I/O-bound web requests.
6mo ago
Performance advanced
PHP Object Injection
PHP 5.0+
Passing attacker-controlled data to unserialize() triggers magic methods on existing classes, enabling code execution, file deletion, or SSRF.
CWE-502 OWASP A8:2021
6mo ago
Security advanced
9.8
PHP Preloading (opcache.preload)
PHP 7.4+
2
Loading PHP files into shared memory at server start so every worker process gets pre-compiled bytecode with zero per-request filesystem overhead.
6mo ago
PHP advanced
PHP Preloading — Performance Impact
PHP 7.4+
Quantifying preloading gains: most benefit on large frameworks (5–15%), negligible on tiny apps — how to measure and tune opcache.preload.
6mo ago
Performance advanced
PHP Stream Wrappers
PHP 5.0+
1
PHP's I/O abstraction layer — built-in wrappers like file://, php://, phar://, and http:// let file functions operate over any protocol.
6mo ago
PHP advanced
Prometheus & Grafana
PHP 7.0+
4
Prometheus scrapes and stores time-series metrics; Grafana visualises them — together they provide open-source metrics monitoring and alerting for any application.
6mo ago
Observability advanced
Property-Based Testing
PHP 7.0+
A testing approach that generates hundreds of random inputs to verify that a property (invariant) holds for all of them — finding edge cases that example-based tests miss.
6mo ago
Testing advanced
Prototype Pollution
ES5
1
An attacker injects properties into JavaScript's Object.prototype, affecting all objects in the application.
CWE-1321 OWASP A3:2021
6mo ago
Security advanced
8.1
Proxy & Reflect API
ES2015
Proxy wraps an object and intercepts fundamental operations (get, set, delete) via handler traps — Reflect provides the default implementations of those operations.
6mo ago
JavaScript advanced
Public Key Infrastructure (PKI)
1
The system of certificate authorities, certificates, and protocols that establishes trust in public keys — enabling HTTPS, code signing, and email encryption at internet scale.
6mo ago
Cryptography advanced
Property Hooks (PHP 8.4)
PHP 8.4+
PHP 8.4 property hooks attach get/set logic directly to a property declaration — eliminating getter/setter method boilerplate for common validation and transformation patterns.
PHP advanced