Advanced PHP Programming – Professional Course in Uganda

Course outline and learning expectations

This is a tutor-led course. The outline shows what your tutor will cover; teaching materials and examinations are provided directly to enrolled students.

What you will learn

• By the end of this advanced PHP course, the learner will be able to:
• Explain PHP memory behaviour, references, copy-on-write, and garbage collection.
• Design stable APIs using advanced type declarations and variance.
• Apply architecture and design patterns without unnecessary complexity.
• Build metadata-driven systems using attributes and reflection.
• Implement custom iterators and memory-efficient streaming pipelines.
• Understand generators, coroutines, and the appropriate role of Fibers.
• Profile CPU time, memory, and I/O before making optimisations.
• Design secure boundaries for files, processes, serialisation, and untrusted input.
• Create high-confidence test suites and enforce strict static analysis.
• Package a professional PHP library or command-line application.
• Review and modernise complex or legacy PHP code.

Modules

1. 1

   PHP runtime behaviour and memory

   How PHP values are stored and copied.References and common reference mistakes.Copy-on-write behaviour.Object identity, cloning, and immutability.Garbage collection and circular references.Memory measurement.Error handlers, exception handlers, and shutdown behaviour.Diagnosing memory-intensive programs.
2. 2

   Advanced type and API design

   Union, intersection, and disjunctive normal form types.Covariance and contravariance.self, static, and parent.Advanced callable signatures.Immutability and readonly design.Generics through PHPDoc and static analysis.Designing backward-compatible public APIs.Deprecation and migration strategies.
3. 3

   Architecture and high-value patterns

   Boundaries between domain logic and external services.Dependency inversion.Strategy, factory, adapter, decorator, and command patterns.Repository-like abstractions without databases.Event-driven domain logic.Functional core and imperative shell.Recognising and avoiding overengineering.Refactoring tightly coupled applications.
4. 4

   Attributes, reflection, and metaprogramming

   Declaring and applying PHP attributes.Attribute targets and repeatable attributes.Reflection classes.Reading metadata at runtime.Building attribute-driven validators and command registries.Magic methods and their risks.__serialize() and __unserialize().Safe alternatives to uncontrolled dynamic behaviour.
5. 5

   SPL, iterators, and streaming pipelines

   Standard PHP Library collections and iterators.Iterator, IteratorAggregate, and Traversable.Recursive iterators.Generator delegation with yield from.Lazy data transformation.Streaming large CSV and JSON Lines files.Designing composable processing stages.Measuring memory improvements.
6. 6

   Fibers, performance, and optimisation

   Generator communication and coroutines.PHP Fibers and cooperative execution.Appropriate and inappropriate Fiber use cases.CPU-bound versus I/O-bound work.Benchmark design and misleading measurements.Profiling with Xdebug.OPcache and JIT concepts.Algorithmic improvement before micro-optimisation.Composer autoloader optimisation.
7. 7

   Security, testing, and quality gates

   Trust boundaries for command-line applications.Validating file names, paths, and structured input.Path traversal and unsafe process execution.Serialisation and object-injection risks.Test architecture and test doubles.Data providers and edge-case testing.Strict static analysis.Mutation testing concepts.Continuous quality checks.Reviewing code for reliability and maintainability.
8. 8

   Advanced capstone

   Build a High-Volume Data Reconciliation Engine that:Streams large fictional transaction files.Uses iterators and generators to control memory.Applies modular reconciliation strategies.Registers processors through PHP attributes and reflection.Produces structured error and audit reports.Includes benchmarks and documented performance decisions.Uses strict static analysis and comprehensive tests.Is packaged as a reusable Composer project.Runs without a browser, framework, or database.