Optimizing PHP object hydration with generated code and reusable closures

Short summary

A deep dive into optimizing PHP object hydration, where the author built HydraType — a library that generates dedicated hydrator classes at runtime to eliminate per-property reflection overhead. By using class-scoped closures that batch all assignments into a single call, hydration of five private properties drops from ~290ns to ~152ns. The generated code only includes operations each property actually needs, keeping plain assignments zero-cost while supporting type conversion, nested objects, transformations, and assertions opt-in.

• •HydraType generates dedicated hydrator classes per target, avoiding runtime reflection on every assignment
• •Reusable class-scoped closures batch all property assignments into one call — ~152ns vs ~290ns for 5 properties
• •Features like conversions, assertions, and transformations are opt-in per property, keeping plain assignments zero-cost

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