Understanding FFI

The main purpose of a Foreign Function Interface (FFI) is to allow any given programming language the ability to incorporate code and function calls from external libraries written in other languages. An early example of this was the ability of 1980s microcomputers to incorporate assembler language into otherwise sluggish Beginners’ All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code (BASIC) programming language scripts using the PEEK and POKE commands. Unlike many other languages, PHP did not have this capability prior to PHP 7.4, although it had been under discussion since 2004.