Norbert Orzechowicz

23 Feb 2025

Want to learn how I automated the setup of a local development environment for Flow #PHP with the following dependencies: - PHP 8.2/8.3/8.4 - blackfire/xdebug/pcov/zstd/brotli/snappy/lz4 - PostgreSQL - MySQL - Redis - Elasticsearch - Meilisearch - Azureite - Localstack Read 🧵

11 Feb

So many business owners (but also others who have never written a line of code) like to tell software developers how easy, fast, and maybe even redundant their job is getting with AI. So few developers tell the same to them. It looks like a projection, not prophecy 🤔

I see two niches in the PHP ecosystem. One of them is data processing, and the second is observability. OpenTelemetry is an amazing concept, but the PHP implementation is not really aligned with how PHP and PHP apps work. Below comes from flow-php/telemetry and #Symfony Bundle

Flow on the other hand provides native telemetry integration through: - data frame And I'm also working on adding it into: - flow-php/filesystem (azure / aws bridges) - flow-php/parquet - flow-php/postgresql

flow-php.comSponsor - Flow PHP - Data Processing FrameworkFlow is a PHP-based, strongly typed data processing framework with low memory footprint that can process various data sources consistently. It offers a unified API for all data sources, including CSV, JSON, XML, Text, Parquet, Avro, Rest API, RDBMS, Elasticsearch / Meilisearch. Flow not only enables you to process various data sources consistently, but also strives to accurately detect data types and cast them to the appropriate PHP types.

If you find my work useful, please consider sponsoring me at flow-php.com/sponsor/

Now I'm working on flow-php/symfony-telemetry-bundle that will connect all dots together, registering in service container a Telemetry instance that if passed to flow libraries will provide telemetry from all those libraries out of the box.

On top of that bundle is injecting telemtry into the most popular symfony services like: - http kernel / client - messenger - console - twig - doctrine - cache

flow-php.comDocumentation - Flow PHP - Data Processing FrameworkDocumentation

flow-php/telemetry is a tiny, dependency free abstraction that implements OTLP and provides default, zero impact implementations for processors/exporters. I'm slowly introducing it into all Flow Libraries. flow-php.com/documentati...

flow-php.comDocumentation - Flow PHP - Data Processing FrameworkDocumentation

Library itself is not even coupled with open telemetry, this means that flow-php/telemetry signals like spans/logs/instruments can be translated to any protocol. In order to use OTLP, we have a package flow-php/telemetry-otlp-bridge flow-php.com/documentati...

I'm working on new package for Flow #PHP Framework! 🤯 Two packages to be more precise: flow-php/telemetry flow-php/telemetry-otlp-bridge thread 👇

github.comfeature: flow php telemetry library by norberttech · Pull Request #2150 · flow-php/flowResolves: #1334 Change Log Added flow-php/telemetry library flow-php/telemetry-otlp-bridge bridge Fixed Changed Removed Deprecated ...

You can check my progress here: github.com/flow-php/fl... Once merged I'm going to add flow-php/telemetry to most of my packages/libraries 💪

If you find my work useful, please consider sponsoring me at flow-php.com/sponsor/

I'm working on new package for Flow #PHP Framework! 🤯 Two packages to be more precise: flow-php/telemetry flow-php/telemetry-otlp-bridge thread 👇

flow-php/telemetry - contracts, telemetry abstraction. Why not OTEL? Mostly due to a lot of magic, AOP approach and implicit behaviors. OTEL seems to be ported from Java where AOP, not really aligned with how systems are designed in php.

Flow Telemetry doesn't rely on global state, there are no singletons. Yet it follows OTEL specification. flow-php/telemetry-otlp-bridge helps with serialization telemetry objects to open telemetry protocol.

13 Jan

Last week I moved flow-php.com from G💩💩le to @ProtonMail Was planning this since a while but never had enough time, but let me tell you... It's AWESOME! User interface is light and clean, mobile apps works great. And those aliases <3

account.proton.meEnjoy two weeks of Proton for freeExperience true online privacy. Protect your data with Proton for free for the next 14 days.

13 Jan

If you also thinking about migrating, stop, just do it! It's super easy, their UI is very intuitive and if by any chance you would like to support Flow #PHP you can even use my referral link pr.tn/ref/WPGFD6SW !

12 Jan

Recently I have been working on a php telemetry library that is fully compatible with open telemetry protocol and does not use global state/singletons. I'm almost done with first draft, but of course I had to step into another rabbit hole... Async http client.

github.comGitHub - php-http/httplug: HTTPlug, the HTTP client abstraction for PHPHTTPlug, the HTTP client abstraction for PHP. Contribute to php-http/httplug development by creating an account on GitHub.

12 Jan

Its a second time where I could really use an async client contract. First time was when I was building azure blob SDK for Flow Filesystem library. I have to decide now, I could use an existing contract github.com/php-http/ht... or create my own 🤔

12 Jan

There is something tempting about owning all those contracts and having control over everything, but on the other hand, it adds work - not much, as this would be 2 interfaces and 3 implementations (Symfony/Guzzle/curl) but still. What would you do? 🤔

9 Jan

Need to extract filtered data from PostgreSQL with pagination? Pass your WHERE parameters directly and Flow handles pagination correctly. The extractor auto-detects your parameter positions. If you use $1, $2 for filters, pagination params start at $3. #PHP #PostgreSQL #ETL

Flow #PHP now supports onComplete callbacks for Symfony streamed responses. After streaming finishes, you get a Report with row counts, execution time, and memory stats. #PHP #DataEngineering #Symfony

github.comRelease 0.30.0 · flow-php/flow[0.30.0] - 2026-01-06 Added #2130 - Allow preserving existing values during DBAL upsert - @stloyd #2129 - Schema::isSame to use it for early exit merge operation when schema is the same - @norbert...

Flow #PHP 0.30.0 is out! github.com/flow-php/fl... flow-php/postgresql - is a dedicated Flow PHP Client for #PostgreSQL focused on parsing/query building. It's focused and optimized for PostgreSQL, powerful DSL makes building even the most complex queries programmatically.

We also upgraded the lowest supported PHP version from 8.2 to 8.3, at the same time brining support for PHP 8.5

If you find my work useful, please consider sponsoring me at flow-php.com/sponsor/

flow-php/pg-query - a php extension based on libpg providing parser / ast / deparser - thanks to it, flow-php/postgresql can parse and existing query string and turn it into query builder or perform advanced manipulations / static analysis!

flow-php/etl-adapter-excel - excel adapter can now write to excel files, previously it was only reading. With this also our playground received excel support!

5 Jan

Building SQL queries with optional filters is messy. If-statements everywhere. String concatenation. Easy to mess up. Flow PHP now has a fluent condition builder for PostgreSQL queries. Build WHERE clauses incrementally. Add conditions when they exist, skip when they don't.

5 Jan

No more manual string building. It's immutable, composable, and generates parameterized queries. Check the screenshot for a quick example #PHP #PostgreSQL #DataEngineering

2 Jan

From time to time I'm getting a feedback that Flow #PHP DSL is "ugly". I disagree! it's just different than what most devs are used to. Flow DSL is based on underscore, lower case functions that under the hood are creating objects. Yes, Flow is object oriented!

2 Jan

The reason for using functions like df() instead of new DataFrame is readability. ETL pipelines are often complex chains of transformations. Those code samples are identical, one creates objects through factories hidden behind simple functions, other is using constructors

2 Jan

Neither of them is good or bad, is a matter of preference, I come from Apache Spark, I do prefer DSL over constructors, because I believe that in a bigger picture DSL improves code readability. Which one and why do you prefer?

31 Dec 2025

Pagination is one the techniques to retrieve large data from database. Flow #PHP adapter for #PostgreSql provides 3 different types: - limit offset - key set - cursor Do you know which one is the least scalable?

29 Dec 2025

Flow #PHP playground is a PHP compiled to #WASM with multiple extensions allowing us to run #ETL pipelines in the browser. One of the recent additions was #excel support. try it yourself: flow-php.com/playground/...

flow-php.comDocumentation - Flow PHP - Data Processing FrameworkDocumentation

25 Dec 2025

A top request with reports? Saving them as XLSX files. That's why we taught Flow #PHP to master #Excel. flow-php.com/documentati... Marry Christmas Everyone! 🎄🎁

22 Dec 2025

Data processing in #PHP is still in it's early stages. Don't believe me? Look at your system and tell me how it's handling imports/exports. Is it perhaps hand written importer/exporter? Any chance it's using file_get_contents? What stops you from using a Data Frame?

18 Dec 2025

flow-php/postgresql received Client::explain() : Plan feature This means that we can now programmatically extract and analyze postgresql query execution plan! More details in flow-php.com/documentati...

#1 Did you ever had to make a tradeoffs between using a query builder and using a database specific features like CTE in #postgresql? Not any more flow-php/postresql is a brand new library that just joined Flow #PHP Ecosystem! flow-php/postgresql comes with 3 building blocks 👇

flow-php.comDocumentation - Flow PHP - Data Processing FrameworkDocumentation

#7 I highly encourage you take a look at our docs and share your feedback! flow-php.com/documentati...

#8 If you find my work useful, please consider sponsoring me at flow-php.com/sponsor/

#5 flow-php/postgresql is using flow-php/types to convert data between PHP and PostgreSql that you can easily extend in order to provide your own custom converters!

#6 And this is only a beginning! What's comming next is going to make extracting data from postgresql a piece of cake. We are working on dedicated Flow PostgreSQL extract that would let you process PostgreSQL data based on any custom query string!

flow-php.comDocumentation - Flow PHP - Data Processing FrameworkDocumentation

#3 On top of AST Nodes from parser we have probably the most advanced PHP Query builder ⚙️ Thanks to experience of other amazing projects like JOOQ, Dapper or sqlx we crafter very elegant fluent interfaces helping you create any query you can imagine! flow-php.com/documentati...

#4 Last but not least, PostgreSql Client interface! with built in support for Row Mappers 🤯 It comes with a simple Constructor Mapper available out of the box but we are already working on providing bridges for: - cuyz/valinor - crell/serde

github.comGitHub - pganalyze/libpg_query: C library for accessing the PostgreSQL parser outside of the server environmentC library for accessing the PostgreSQL parser outside of the server environment - pganalyze/libpg_query

#2 Parser Thanks to awesome github.com/pganalyze/l... our parser can break any valid postgresql query string into AST. It works with a single or multiple queries statements. Super helpful for adjusting programmatically any query (for example for pagination or validation)

github.comEnabled support for php 8.5 in github actions by norberttech · Pull Request #1906 · flow-php/flowResolves: #1905 Change Log Added support for php 8.5 Fixed Changed Removed Deprecated Security

12 Dec 2025

Flow #PHP now supports PHP 8.5. Dropped 8.2, moved to 8.3 for development, added support for 8.5. 0.29.0 coming soon. github.com/flow-php/fl...

8 Dec 2025

I'm pushing release of next Flow PHP version by a week (maybe 2). There are two things I would like to include in the next release: - support for PHP 8.5 (and migrating codebase to 8.3) - first release of flow-php/postgresql library

8 Dec 2025

flow-php/postgresql library is an evolution of flow-php/pg-query that started as a simple parsers and already evolved into whole postgresql library that comes with query builders for pretty much anything available in postgresql syntax until version 17 🤯

8 Dec 2025

As you can imagine, creating query builders for whole SQL (not only INSERT/DELETE/UPDATE/SELECT) is a maaaaaasive task. That's why new Flow will come a bit later, maybe as a 🎄🎁 from 🎅

5 Dec 2025

flow-php/pg-query quickly escalated from "I just want to parse sql to AST" into "why not build a proper query builder?" 😅 So there is, #PHP Query Builder for #PostgreSQL inspired by JOOQ (API will change, this is just PoC)

3 Dec 2025

Flow #PHP library for parsing SQL flow-php/pg-query just got significantly better! Now it can not only turn query into AST but also convert AST to nicely formatted string! flow-php.com/playground/...