how to secure php code

[donkru]

hello, is there a way to make a binary of php code? what i mean is, i write a script and dont want anyone to be able to see the source code at all, is this possible?
im working on a script and dont want to give the client access to source code. thanks

[halojoy]

This is not possible. Make a binary.
Even if there are compiled binary extension DLL modules for PHP itself to run.

What you can do to protect your php scripts & code is to use
obfuscator scripts.
This will make the php very hard to fix to read in a normal way.
Drawback is that obfuscated code will execute a bit slower
as it needs to be interpretated to something the php can execute.

Here is a google search for FREE Obfuscator scripts:
[URL="http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&q="open+source"+php+obfuscator"]http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&q="open+source"+php+obfuscator[/URL]

Here is one such. I do not know how fresh or good this one is, but ...

PhpCodeBuster - An Open Source PHP Obfuscator
This is the project page for PhpCodeBuster, a freely available and open source PHP class to protect your PHP code.
Using PhpCodeBuster, your PHP scripts will get obfuscated, meaning that the code is changed in such a way that it is very hard to reverse engineer it into a understandable format.

[dagon]

you can encode it using Zend Guard or ionCube or one of the others

[NogDog]

There are some actual PHP compilers out there which will generate binary executables. This, however, makes them platform-dependent, which may or may not be an issue for your intended needs. One example: http://www.roadsend.com/home/index.php?pageID=compiler.

[Weedpacket]

There are "native compilers" for PHP (Pradioblender and binaryphp spring to mind), but they basically work by taking the PHP interpreter and embedding a copy of the script as a resource (the main issue is the need for PHP to be able to execute strings as code). If it's a native executable you want you'd be better served by using a language that can be compiled natively.