The Other refcounter

Summary

Using the topics covered in this chapter, you can begin to apply the glue that PHP is so famous for. The resource data type enables your extension to connect abstract concepts like opaque pointers from third-party libraries to the easy-to-use userspace scripting language that makes PHP so powerful.

In the next two chapters you'll delve into the last, but by no means least, data type in the PHP lexicon. You'll start by exploring simple Zend Engine 1based classes, and move into their more powerful Zend Engine 2 successors.