Skip to content

Instantly share code, notes, and snippets.

View ThePixelDeveloper's full-sized avatar

Mathew Davies ThePixelDeveloper

View GitHub Profile
@nikic
nikic / objects_arrays.md
Last active February 27, 2026 12:16
Post explaining why objects often use less memory than arrays (in PHP)

Why objects (usually) use less memory than arrays in PHP

This is just a small post in response to [this tweet][tweet] by Julien Pauli (who by the way is the release manager for PHP 5.5). In the tweet he claims that objects use more memory than arrays in PHP. Even though it can be like that, it's not true in most cases. (Note: This only applies to PHP 5.4 or newer.)

The reason why it's easy to assume that objects are larger than arrays is because objects can be seen as an array of properties and a bit of additional information (like the class it belongs to). And as array + additional info > array it obviously follows that objects are larger. The thing is that in most cases PHP can optimize the array part of it away. So how does that work?

The key here is that objects usually have a predefined set of keys, whereas arrays don't:

@DanHerbert
DanHerbert / fix-homebrew-npm.md
Last active March 26, 2026 21:24
Instructions on how to fix npm if you've installed Node through Homebrew on Mac OS X or Linuxbrew

OBSOLETE

This entire guide is based on an old version of Homebrew/Node and no longer applies. It was only ever intended to fix a specific error message which has since been fixed. I've kept it here for historical purposes, but it should no longer be used. Homebrew maintainers have fixed things and the options mentioned don't exist and won't work.

I still believe it is better to manually install npm separately since having a generic package manager maintain another package manager is a bad idea, but the instructions below don't explain how to do that.

Fixing npm On Mac OS X for Homebrew Users

Installing node through Homebrew can cause problems with npm for globally installed packages. To fix it quickly, use the solution below. An explanation is also included at the end of this document.

FROM ubuntu:16.04
RUN PACKAGES="\
php-cli \
php-mysql \
php-intl \
php-xml \
php-curl \
php-dom \
" && \