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Voyager PHP Wrapper

Voyager PHP Wrapper is a Composer package for the voyager PHP extension. It adds auto-loadable PHP stubs and a small object-oriented facade around the native runtime function and method redefinition APIs.

The underlying extension lives in /Users/George/Develop/C/voyager and provides the native functions:

• voyager_function_redefine()
• voyager_method_redefine()

This package exposes those functions to Composer projects and provides Betterde\Voyager\Debug for a cleaner call style.

How It Works

Features

• Redefine existing user-defined functions at runtime.
• Redefine existing methods on user-defined classes at runtime.
• Use closures directly for replacement implementations.
• Use string argument/body mode for dynamic code generation.
• Preserve a Composer-friendly developer experience with stubs and PSR-4 autoloading.
• Provide readable flag constants for method visibility/static/reference behavior.

Requirements

• PHP 8.1 or higher
• Composer
• The voyager PHP extension installed and enabled

The Composer package requires ext-voyager, so composer install will fail if the extension is not available to the PHP binary Composer is using.

Installing the Native Extension

Build and install the C extension first:

Then enable it in your php.ini:

You can also load it temporarily for a single command:

Verify that PHP can see the extension:

Installing This Package

Install the wrapper with Composer:

For local development from this repository:

Usage

Redefine a Function

Redefine a Method

Use $this in a Redefined Method

String Body Mode

The native extension also supports defining the replacement with an argument list string and a code body string. The Debug facade keeps that mode available.

For methods, pass optional flags as the fifth argument:

API

Betterde\Voyager\Debug::functionRedefine()

Redefines an existing function.

• Closure mode: pass a Closure as the second argument.
• String mode: pass an argument list string as the second argument and a PHP code body string as the third argument.

Betterde\Voyager\Debug::methodRedefine()

Redefines an existing class method.

Available facade flags:

Flags may be combined with bitwise OR:

Native Functions

This package also autoloads stubs for the native functions, so IDEs and static analysis tools can understand them:

Important Notes

Voyager changes PHP runtime behavior at the Zend engine level. Treat it as a debugging, diagnostics, instrumentation, and emergency hot-fix tool.

• Redefine only functions and methods you own and understand.
• Avoid redefining code that is currently on the call stack.
• Be careful with long-running workers, preloaded code, opcache, and production traffic.
• Prefer narrow, reversible changes and add logging around live diagnostics.
• Do not use runtime redefinition as a substitute for a normal deployment flow.

Project Structure