TL;DR: Single quoted strings are the most performing, both for simple text and for concatenation with other variables.

Tests

Compared 3 types of string specification:

• Single Quoted (e.g. echo 'string';)
• Double Quoted (e.g. echo "string";)
• HEREDOC (e.g. echo <<<EOT string EOT;)

For each type of specification, 2 tests:

• Simple string (e.g. 'string')
• String + a variable (e.g. 'string'.$var)

Iterations

In order to simulate a strong workload and have more data, the code ran 10 iterations with a 5-second pause. For each iteration 1 Million echo were executed, without any pause.

To make sure that the machine load doesn't skew the results, all the 3 different specifications are executed within the same iteration, one after the other, with the same 5-second delay. So at any point in time, the load should be equally distributed among the different specifications.

Buffer

Since the actual printing of the strings must not affect these tests, ob_start() and ob_end_clean() are used to not print anything, and ob_clean() is used within each iteration to free up the buffer.

The Code

This is the code used to run the tests.

<?php

define('MAX_PER_ITERATION', 10000000);
define('MAX_ITERATIONS', 10);
define('SLEEP_TIME', 5);

echo "TEST 1: Simple String\n";
$times = [
    'quote' => [],
    'doublequote' => [],
    'heredoc' => []
];
for ($k = 1; $k <= MAX_ITERATIONS; $k++) {
    echo "Iteration ".$k."\n";

    /* Start Single Quote tests */
    echo "\tQuote\n";
    ob_start();
    $start = microtime(true);
    for ($i = 0; $i < MAX_PER_ITERATION; $i++) {
        echo 'string';
        ob_clean();
    }
    $diff = (microtime(true) - $start);
    ob_end_clean();
    $times['quote'][] = $diff;
    sleep(SLEEP_TIME);

    /* Start Double Quote tests */
    echo "\tDouble Quote\n";
    ob_start();
    $start = microtime(true);
    for ($i = 0; $i < MAX_PER_ITERATION; $i++) {
        echo "string";
        ob_clean();
    }
    $diff = (microtime(true) - $start);
    ob_end_clean();
    $times['doublequote'][] = $diff;
    sleep(SLEEP_TIME);

    /* Start HEREDOC tests */
    echo "\tHeredoc\n";
    ob_start();
    $start = microtime(true);
    for ($i = 0; $i < MAX_PER_ITERATION; $i++) {
        echo <<< EOT
            string
        EOT;
        ob_clean();
    }
    $diff = (microtime(true) - $start);
    ob_end_clean();
    $times['heredoc'][] = $diff;
    sleep(SLEEP_TIME);
}
foreach ($times as $type => $results) {
    echo $type."\n";
    foreach ($results as $r) {
        echo "\t\t".$r."\n";
    }
    $avg = array_sum($results) / sizeof($results);
    echo "\tAvg: ".$avg."\n";
}

sleep(100);

echo "TEST 2: String with Variable\n";
$times = [
    'quote' => [],
    'doublequote' => [],
    'heredoc' => []
];
$variable = 'string2';
for ($k = 1; $k <= MAX_ITERATIONS; $k++) {
    echo "Iteration ".$k."\n";

    /* Start Single Quote tests */
    echo "\tQuote\n";
    ob_start();
    $start = microtime(true);
    for ($i = 0; $i < MAX_PER_ITERATION; $i++) {
        echo 'string'.$variable;
        ob_clean();
    }
    $diff = (microtime(true) - $start);
    ob_end_clean();
    $times['quote'][] = $diff;
    sleep(SLEEP_TIME);

    /* Start Double Quote tests */
    echo "\tDouble Quote\n";
    ob_start();
    $start = microtime(true);
    for ($i = 0; $i < MAX_PER_ITERATION; $i++) {
        echo "string $variable";
        ob_clean();
    }
    $diff = (microtime(true) - $start);
    ob_end_clean();
    $times['doublequote'][] = $diff;
    sleep(SLEEP_TIME);

    /* Start HEREDOC tests */
    echo "\tHeredoc\n";
    ob_start();
    $start = microtime(true);
    for ($i = 0; $i < MAX_PER_ITERATION; $i++) {
        echo <<< EOT
            string {$variable}
        EOT;
        ob_clean();
    }
    $diff = (microtime(true) - $start);
    ob_end_clean();
    $times['heredoc'][] = $diff;
    sleep(SLEEP_TIME);
}
foreach ($times as $type => $results) {
    echo $type."\n";
    foreach ($results as $r) {
        echo "\t\t".$r."\n";
    }
    $avg = array_sum($results) / sizeof($results);
    echo "\tAvg: ".$avg."\n";
}

Summary Results

Unsurprisingly, the Single Quoted strings are the fastest: as they don't require parsing for variables or special characters (e.g. \n), they run quicker than the others both for simple strings and for variables.

• Simple String: 0.3838947773 seconds for 1 Million executions
• String+Variable: 0.532834816 seconds for 1 Million executions

Heredoc performs a bit slower than Single Quoted strings, but faster than Double Quoted ones, especially when without variables.

• Simple String: 0.387871933 seconds for 1 Million executions
• String+Variable: 0.553892827 seconds for 1 Million executions

Finally Double Quoted strings:

• Simple String: 0.3914105415 seconds for 1 Million executions
• String+Variable: 0.5623492718 seconds for 1 Million executions

Complete Results

Below you can see a sneak peak of the final results. If you click on the image or here , you can access a shared spreadsheet with the complete data.

System/Versions

• PHP 7.4.19
• Amazon Linux 2 AMI
• Kernel 4.14.232-177.418.amzn2.x86_64
• 16GB Memory
• 4 Virtual CPUs

As of 22 July 2021, version 3.5.1 is stable in the pecl channel and can be used to compile imagick for both PHP 7 and PHP 8.

pecl install imagick

The general command will not fail anymore

TL;DR

Install the older version (3.4.4) of Imagick forcing it via pecl

pecl install imagick-3.4.4

Intro

The last version (3.5) of the PHP extension for Imagemagick ( Imagick ) introduces a compilation error on Apple systems, which is independent from the PHP version (tested on 7.4 and 8) and Imagemagick version (tested on 6.x and 7.x) and is instead related to the missing/broken support for gomp of the gcc compiler.

This is not related to Apple Silicon either, as I've tested on an Intel machine.

Error

The error is thrown while compiling, after running

pecl install imagick

The complete error is

ld: library not found for -lgomp

Potential Fixes

There are several Stack Overflow threads talking about compilation errors due to Gomp. The most comprehensive I've found is this.

I've tried few of the fixes proposed in the answer, but most require compiling a different version of gcc, which would make subsequent updates via homebrew unstable.

Also tried this other amazing thread on Stack Overflow which suggests llvm and revised compiler flags, but it didn't work for this specific case, probably due to built-in parameters in the pecl compilation process.

Actual Fix

In the end the final fix was to downgrade the version of Imagick to 4.3.3, which compiles perfectly.

You can do so either by downloading the release from github or simply by forcing the version in pecl as follows:

pecl install imagick-3.4.4

With more Gen-Z and Millennials in the platform, allowing the simplified signup and login process via TikTok is the logical step for many Web Apps, including our very own Lnk.Bio.

While the implementation is a very basic oauth2 flow, there were no published class nor guides specific to PHP implementation, so I thought useful to publish an Open-source class and this quick tutorial based on such class.

Step 1: Register your App

First of all, you need to register in the TikTok Developers platform](https://developers.tiktok.com/). Process is easy and approval is quite fast; it took us just 24hrs to get approved with Lnk.Bio.

Pay attention to the approved redirect URLs. While the TikTok page calls them “Redirect Domains”, they actually require full URLs, so the full path of the page where you’re redirected after the TikTok login.

After you register your application you will receive, as usual a Client Key and Client Secret.

Step 2: Install helper class

Use Composer to install the PHP helper

composer require gimucco/tiktok-loginkit

If, for any reason, you’re not using Composer, you can download the class from Github. Current stable is v0.1.

Step 3: Full Login Example

The login flow is typical:

• Generate a Redirect Url to send the user to TikTok to authorise your app
• Receive the Authorisation Token
• Exchange the Authorisation Token with an Access Token that you can use for the rest of the calls
• Make a sample call to retrieve the User Information

Here’s a quick code sample

session_start(); // Important! Required for STATE Variable check and prevent CSRF attacks
require_once __DIR__.'/../../../autoload.php';
use gimucco\TikTokLoginKit;

$api_key = ''; // Your API Key, as obtained from TikTok Developers portal
$api_secret = ''; // Your API Secret, as obtained from TikTok Developers portal
$redirect_uri = ''; // Where to return after authorization. Must be approved in the TikTok Developers portal
$_TK = new TikTokLoginKit($api_key, $api_secret, $redirect_uri);

if (TikTokLoginKit\Connector::receivingResponse()) { // Check if you're receiving the Authorisation Code
    try {
        $token = $_TK->verifyCode($_GET[TikTokLoginKit\Connector::CODE_PARAM]); // Verify the Authorisation code and get the Access Token

        // ** Your logic to store the access token goes here

        $user = $_TK->getUser(); // Retrieve the User Object

        // ** Your logic to store or use the User Info goes here

        // Print some HTML as example
        echo <<<HTML
        <table width="500">
            <tr>
                <td with="200"><img src="{$user->getAvatarLarger()}"></td>
                <td>
                    <br />
                    <strong>ID</strong>: {$user->getOpenID()}<br /><br />
                    <strong>Name</strong>: {$user->getDisplayName()}
                </td>
            </tr>
        </table>
HTML;
    } catch (Exception $e) {
        echo "Error: ".$e->getMessage();
        echo '<br /><a href="?">Retry</a>';
    }
} else { // Print the initial login button that redirects to TikTok
    echo '<a href="'.$_TK->getRedirect().'">Log in with TikTok</a>';
}

All done! If you have any suggestion on the class or its implementation please feel free to reach out on GitHub or Twitter.