Microservices

By default, KPHP serves HTTP requests from users.
But it can be launched as an RPC server — to serve requests from other KPHP instances.

Available requests are described with TL scheme

Read more about TL schema and RPC calls.

All functions to be invoked when KPHP acts like an RPC server must be annotated with @kphp in TL.

Let's write a simple microservice

It can respond to ‘kphp.squareNumber(n)' request, responding n^2.

First, describe this in TL:

@kphp kphp.squareNumber n:int = Int;

Second, use tl2php to generate representing PHP classes.

Third, write square-microservice-backend.php to respond to this request:

$request = rpc_server_fetch_request();
if ($request instanceof \TL\kphp\Functions\kphp_squareNumber) {
  $input = $request->n;
  $output = $input * $input;
  $response = \TL\kphp\Functions\kphp_squareNumber::createRpcServerResponse($output);
  rpc_server_store_response($response);
} else {
  fwrite(STDERR, "Unsupported query\n");
}

Fourth, compile it to kphp-squarer binary and launch it with –rpc-port option:

./kphp-squarer --rpc-port 12321

Next, use another KPHP as a client to invoke the kphp_squareNumber RPC function.

How to organize your project structure

If you wish, you can write code in different repos — each repo for each microservice. In this case, you'll compile them separately and deploy different binaries where you need them.

Another option is to use monorepo and to handle request type at the beginning of your entrypoint:

if ($_SERVER['RPC_REQUEST_ID']) {
  // then it is a query for RPC server
  $rpc_response = rpc_server_fetch_request(); 
  // you handle this typed rpc query, and finally
  rpc_server_store_response($response);
  exit;
}

In this case, you deploy a single binary everywhere. It can be launched either as an HTTP or as an RPC server.