1. Concept
Zval is another very important data structure in zend, used to identify and implement PHP variables. Contains information about variable values and types in PHP.
2. Composition
type: specifies the type of variable (integer, string, array, etc.)
refcount&is_ref: used to implement reference counting (detailed introduction later)
value: core part, which stores the actual data of the variable
3. Examples
struct _zval_struct { union { zend_long lval; /* long value */ double dval; /* double value */ zend_refcounted *counted; zend_string *str; zend_array *arr; zend_object *obj; zend_resource *res; zend_reference *ref; zend_ast_ref *ast; zval *zv; void *ptr; zend_class_entry *ce; zend_function *func; struct { uint32_t w1; uint32_t w2; } ww; } value; union { struct { ZEND_ENDIAN_LOHI_4( zend_uchar type, /* active type */ zend_uchar type_flags, zend_uchar const_flags, zend_uchar reserved) /* call info for EX(This) */ } v; uint32_t type_info; } u1; union { uint32_t var_flags; uint32_t next; /* hash collision chain */ uint32_t cache_slot; /* literal cache slot */ uint32_t lineno; /* line number (for ast nodes) */ uint32_t num_args; /* arguments number for EX(This) */ uint32_t fe_pos; /* foreach position */ uint32_t fe_iter_idx; /* foreach iterator index */ } u2; };
The above is the introduction to Zval in PHP, I hope it will be helpful to everyone.