PHP 7 Upgrade Guide
PHP 7 Upgrade Guide
Your guide to new features, breaking changes, and more.
About the Book
The PHP 7 release is here, bringing some much-desired changes and improvements to the language. This book covers all of the new features coming in PHP 7, as well as breaking changes and "gotchas" to watch out for. You'll learn how to take advantage of these changes and get started with PHP 7 today.
Who is this book for?
This book is for PHP developers looking to jump into PHP 7. You'll need previous experience with PHP in order to understand the topics and examples we'll cover. The more you know about PHP 5 and OOP, the more you'll understand why some of the changes are important and how they'll impact your development.
If you're a manager or leader of a team looking to work in PHP 7, this book will help your developers quickly catch up on all the changes they need to know about, and even expose some new features they can take advantage of for faster, better development.
Reader Testimonials

Larry E. Masters
Founder of CakePHP
Good quick read for those interested in PHP 7. Spend a few bucks and get it.

Jack Fruh
Co-Host, Laravel News Podcast
Just skimming through the PHP 7 Upgrade Guide and am REALLY impressed with the coverage of the new stuff in here - it goes way deeper than I thought, and is showing me things about PHP 7 that I didn't know about. There's been so much talk about PHP 7 being faster, and maybe even some "Just drop it in" mentality without discussion of the actual differences. I think this is going to be a really valuable resource for people - It should be required reading for all PHP devs!
Ian
/u/AfterNite
[The book] looks pretty well written. Examples are simple but to the point.
aquanutz
This book is great. Highly recommend it for those about to go through the upgrade to PHP 7.
Table of Contents
-
Preface
- Who is this book for
- Contents
- Other resources
-
Acknowledgements
- PHP Wiki and Documentation Content
-
Getting Started with PHP 7
- Ubuntu 14.04 and 16.04+
- Debian 8 & 9
- Debian 6 & 7
- CentOS / RHEL
- Mac OS X
- Windows
- phpbrew
- Docker
- Vagrant Image
- Build from Source
-
Part 1 - New Features
-
Chapter 1: Scalar Type Hints
- Type Checking Modes
- Mixing Modes
- Backwards Compatibility
- Further Reading
-
Chapter 2: Return Type Declarations
-
Returning
null
- Sub-Class Methods
- Further Reading
-
Returning
-
Chapter 3: Combined Comparison (Spaceship) Operator
- Comparing Values
- Sorting
- Sorting by multiple values
- Further Reading
-
Chapter 4: Null Coalesce Operator
-
Differences From
?:
- Chaining
- Further Reading
-
Differences From
-
Chapter 5: Unicode Codepoint Escape Syntax
-
Why the
{}
s? - Limitations
- Backwards Compatibility
- Further Reading:
-
Why the
-
Chapter 6: Anonymous Classes
- Nesting Classes
- Use Cases
- Differences from Named Classes
- Further Reading:
-
Chapter 7: Group Use Declarations
- Compound Namespaces
- Further Reading:
-
Chapter 8: Closure
call
Method- Further Reading:
-
Chapter 9: Generator Return Expressions
- Further Reading:
-
Chapter 10: Generator Delegation
- Yielding Values
- Sending Values
- Exceptions
- Return Values
- Further Reading:
-
Chapter 11: Reliable User-land CSPRNG
- Backwards Compatibility
- Forwards Compatibility
- Further Reading
-
Chapter 12: Integer Division
- Backwards Compatibility
- Further Reading
-
Chapter 13: preg_replace_callback_array
- Backwards Compatibility
- Further Reading
-
Chapter 14:
IntlChar
Class- Backwards Compatibility
- Further Reading
-
Chapter 1: Scalar Type Hints
-
Part 2 - Language Changes & Improvements
-
Chapter 15: Performance
- Further Reading
-
Chapter 16: Language Consistency
- Uniform Variable Syntax
- Abstract Syntax Tree
- Further Reading
-
Chapter 17: Semi-Reserved Words
- Further Reading
-
Chapter 18: Error Handling and Exceptions
- Exceptions in the Engine
-
Reclassification of
E_STRICT
Notices - Backwards Compatibility
- Further Reading
-
Chapter 19: Expectations
-
assert()
as a statement - Custom errors
- Configuration
- Backwards Compatibility
- Further Reading
-
-
Chapter 20: Array Constants in
define()
- Further Reading
-
Chapter 21: Filtered
unserialize()
- Secure filtering
- Examples
- Further Reading
-
Chapter 22:
session_start
Options- New options
- Further Reading
-
Chapter 23: Reflection Enhancements
- ReflectionGenerator
- ReflectionType
- ReflectionParameter
- ReflectionFunctionAbstract
- Backwards Compatibility
- Further Reading
-
Chapter 24: Integer Semantics
- Casting NaN and Infinity
- Negative bitwise shifting
- Bitwise shifting too far
- Backwards Compatibility
- Further Reading
-
Chapter 25: Division By Zero Semantics
- Backwards Compatibility
- Further Reading
-
Chapter 26: JSON Library
- Fractional float values
- Backwards Compatibility
- Further Reading
-
Chapter 27: Behavior Changes to
foreach
- Changes
- Backwards Compatibility
- Further Reading
-
Chapter 28: Behavior Changes to
list
- String Handling
- Empty List Assignment
- Variable Assignment Order
- Backwards Compatibility
- Further Reading
-
Chapter 29: Parameter Handling Changes
- Duplicate Parameter Names
-
func_get_arg()
andfunc_get_args()
- Backwards Compatibility
- Further Reading
-
Chapter 30: Custom Session Handler Return Values
- Backwards Compatibility
- Further Reading
-
Chapter 31: Errors on Invalid Octal Literals
- Backwards Compatibility
- Further Reading
-
Chapter 15: Performance
-
Part 3 - Deprecations & Removals
-
Chapter 32: Deprecation of PHP 4 Constructors
- Backwards Compatibility
- Further Reading
-
Chapter 33: Deprecation of Salt Option for
password_hash()
- Further Reading
-
Chapter 34: Removal of Previously-Deprecated Features
- Removed Extensions
- Removed Language Features
- Removed Functions
- Removed INI Options
- Miscellaneous Removed Functionality
- Backwards Compatibility
- Further Reading
-
Chapter 35: Removal of Alternative PHP Tags
- Migrating From Alternative Tags
- Backwards Compatibility
- Further Reading
-
Chapter 36: Reclassification and Removal of E_STRICT Notices
- Examples
- Same (compatible) property in two used traits
- Accessing static property non-statically
- Only variables should be assigned by reference
- Only variables should be passed by reference
- Calling non-static methods statically
- Backwards Compatibility
- Further Reading
-
Chapter 37: Removal of Multiple Defaults in Switches
- Backwards Compatibility
- Further Reading
-
Chapter 38: Removal of Numeric Hexadecimal String Support
- Backwards Compatibility
- Further Reading
-
Chapter 39: Removal of Dead SAPIs and Extensions
- Dead SAPIs
- Dead Extensions
- Backwards Compatibility
- Further Reading
-
Chapter 40: Removal of the
date.timezone
Warning- Further Reading
-
Chapter 32: Deprecation of PHP 4 Constructors
-
Appendix - Backward Compatibility Breaks
-
Language Changes
- Variable handling
-
list()
behavior -
foreach
behavior - Parameter handling
- Integer handling
- String handling
- Error handling
- Other language changes
- Standard Library Changes
-
Other Changes
- Curl
- Date
- DBA
- GMP
- Intl
- libxml
- Mcrypt
- Session
- Opcache
- OpenSSL
- PCRE:
- PDO_pgsql:
- Standard:
- JSON:
- Stream:
- XSL:
-
Language Changes
- Notes
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