RFC: Lazy instantiation and unification of reflection classes in MethodMetadata and PropertyMetadata

[ThomasNunninger]

Q	A
Bug report?	no
Feature request?	yes
BC Break report?	no
RFC?	yes

As far as I see it, there is an inconsistency in MethodMetadata and PropertyMetadata:

• MethodMetadata::__construct() (and ::unserialize()) instantiate a ReflectionMethod. Additionally the class offeres an invoke() method

• PropertyMetadata does not have such behavior and does not create a reflection class.

I see two problems:

• The behavior is inconsistent
• On each unserialize of a class, a ReflectionMethod is created for each method. This costs time.

Proposal

I assume, it would have been best not to provide the $reflection property in MethodMetadata at all. But you can't remove it for now as that would be a BC break. Therefore I propose:

• Lazy-initialize a ReflectionMethod only if needed and save it internally for later reuse.
• Make MethodMetadata->reflection private and provide a __get() that handles this case.
• Implement similar behavior for PropertyMetadata.

Questions

• Is such a change desired?
• Would you accept a pull request?

[goetas]

That could be an interesting thing to do.

Are you using MethodMetadata into something particular? (jms/serializer uses it in really few cases)

[ThomasNunninger]

For now, I'm more interested in PropertyMetadata. It was more that I disliked that the ReflectionMethod was instantiated for each method without any need.

Perhaps I could even omit creating the MethodMetadata for my ClassMetadata. But I offer to provide a patch anyway if desired.

[goetas]

• Is such a change desired?

if is a performance improvement, I would say yes. I have removed reflection from the other metadata type for exactly the same reason.

• Would you accept a pull request?

If is backward compatible, yes.

[ThomasNunninger]

Ok, I will provide a pull request within the next days.

One question: My proposal comprises two parts:

Peformance improvement of ReflectionMethod:

• Lazy-initialize a ReflectionMethod only if needed and save it internally for later reuse.
• Make MethodMetadata->reflection private and provide a __get() that handles this case.

Consistent behavior:

• PropertyMetadata
• ClassMetadata (I've forgotten about that before)

Are both parts desired? I'm only interested in the performance improvement. But I can provide the consistent behavior as well.

[goetas]

PropertyMetadata and ClassMetadata starting from 2.0 do not initialize refelction on construction anymore

[ThomasNunninger]

Sorry, I've forgotten to comment on that issue.

The pull request handles the performance improvement ensuring backward-compatibility, but does not re-introduce the reflection property to PropertyMetadata or ClassMetadata.

[goetas]

closed via #78