Features and Compatibility of PHP 5.6.0

The latest PHP version, PHP 5.6.0 has been released by the PHP Development Team and is made available in the market. Appropriate for web development, PHP is needed for scripting languages in websites. It is also used as a programming language used by thousands of websites all over the world.

 

Just after a year of releasing PHP 5.5.0, the PHP Development Team has come up with the flexible PHP 5.6.0. An upgraded version, it makes the work of PHP faster and more realistic. It has been loaded with several new features along with backward incompatible variations. The RPM of this version has been made accessible in Remi-php56 source for Enterprise Linux and Fedora.

 

The basic features of PHP 5.6.0

 

Website development has got a new life with the varied features of PHP 5.6.0

 

• One of the important features of the upgraded version of PHP is its ease of implementing the Variadic function. The operator … can now be used instead of the complicated function: func_get_args().
• One will get constant scalar terminologies and expressions. Numeric, string literals, constants are made readily available to the website developer. Previously PHP anticipated property declarations, constants and static value along with default function argument. All these have been done away with.
• Using the keyword – use, web developers will get the support of importing constants and functions along with additional classes. The keyword ‘use const’ is for constants and ‘use function’ is for the functions.
• The basic arithmetic operations have been modified and simplified. Before processing, conversion of operands of segments is done into integers.
• The GNU Multiple Precision has been changed. Using GNU MP Library one can work with integers of random length. In PHP 5.6.0 the developer can use comparison, bitwise and arithmetic operator with GMP entities. It should be returned from GMP functions like the gmp_init(). The installation process is the same that is it can be installed by compiling GMP support with PHP using the option of : –with-gmp.
• It is available with several built-in wrappers so as to use with the file system functions like copy(), fopen(), filesize() and file_exists(). It is for the different URL style protocols. Apart from the wrappers, a developer can record custom wrappers using the function: stream_wrapper_register().
• The phpdbg has been integrated as a collaborative PHP debugger. Flexible breakpoints, Remote Debugging Support, Stepthrough debugging, Userland API and easy admittance to built-in eval(), Currently Executing Code.
• The file upload size has been increased. Now any file measuring more than 2 gigabytes can easily be uploaded.
• Exponential can be done using the operator: **
• The codes $HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA is condemned and php://input has been made reusable.

Changes affecting compatibility

 

Several changes that affects compatibility of the website have been incorporated which are as follows:

 

• Some new reserved keywords have been integrated.
• The Array keys will not be overwritten while the array is being defined as a group of any class through the array literal. For example the array_merge() has been changed and it accepts only arrays. Warning signs are shown if any wrong array variable gets passed.
• The GMP assets are now treated as objects.
• Host names and Peer certificates are verified by stream wrappers through SSL/TLS by default.
• Valid IVs and keys are required by the Mcrypt function.
• While using the JSON syntax construing the function json_decode() becomes strict.
• The function keys: strripos() and strrpos() use the complete string as needle.
• Earlier the variable PATH_TRANSLATED was set indirectly under Apache2 SAPI. It is no longer the same as compared to that of PHP4.
• Any kind of illegal or improper string offsets usage will cause E_ERROR. Earlier the sign E_WARNING used to be shown.
• If an array is passed to any function, the array pointer inside the function would remain the same.

PHP 5.6.0 is very easy to use. Furthermore, all these features will reduce the workload of PHP Development Services Provider Team and increase the efficiency of any sort of Web Application Development Company.