Could PHP have features outside the engine ? The Zend engine is build for executing PHP code, with performance in mind. Everything has to be processed in a record time, to sustain the heavily loads of PHP web applications. And there are also the code options, which help during development : assertions, syntax options, or attributes. Those options may be applied independantly from execution, and yet, provide a greater level of control on PHP code. To do that, we’ll review PHP syntax, and static analysis.