PHP Asynchronous programming Advantages of Generators
Example
PHP 5.5 introduces Generators and the yield keyword, which allows us to write asynchronous code that looks more like synchronous code.
The yield expression is responsible for giving control back to the calling code and providing a point of resumption at that place. One can send a value along the yield instruction. The return value of this expression is either null or the value which was passed to Generator::send().
function reverse_range($i) {
// the mere presence of the yield keyword in this function makes this a Generator
do {
// $i is retained between resumptions
print yield $i;
} while (--$i > 0);
}
$gen = reverse_range(5);
print $gen->current();
$gen->send("injected!"); // send also resumes the Generator
foreach ($gen as $val) { // loops over the Generator, resuming it upon each iteration
echo $val;
}
// Output: 5injected!4321
This mechanism can be used by a coroutine implementation to wait for Awaitables yielded by the Generator (by registering itself as a callback for resolution) and continue execution of the Generator as soon as the Awaitable is resolved.
