Static class initializer in PHP

Question

I have an helper class with some static functions. All the functions in the class require a ‘heavy’ initialization function to run once (as if it were a constructor).

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Answer 1

I am posting this as an answer because this is very important as of PHP 7.4.

The opcache.preload mechanism of PHP 7.4 makes it possible to preload opcodes for classes. If you use it to preload a file that contains a class definition and some side effects, then classes defined in that file will "exist" for all subsequent scripts executed by this FPM server and its workers, but the side effects will not be in effect, and the autoloader will not require the file containing them because the class already "exists". This completely defeats any and all static initialization techniques that rely on executing top-level code in the file that contains the class definition.