PHP 7 Upgrade Guide

Colin O'Dell

- Sample
Preface
Getting Started with PHP 7
Part 1 - New Features
Part 2 - Language Changes & Improvements
- Chapter 15: Performance
  - Further Reading
Part 3 - Deprecations & Removals
Appendix - Backward Compatibility Breaks
- Language Changes
- Standard Library Changes
- Other Changes
  - Curl
  - Date
  - DBA
  - GMP
  - Intl
  - libxml
  - Mcrypt
  - Session
  - Opcache
  - OpenSSL
  - PCRE:
  - PDO_pgsql:
  - Standard:
  - JSON:
  - Stream:
  - XSL:
Notes

Sample

Thanks for downloading this sample of What’s New in PHP 7!

Preface

Who is this book for

This is 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.

Chapter 1 summarizes the addition of scalar type hints. This allows your function parameters to explicitly require scalar types like string, int, float, or bool.

Chapter 2 covers the declaration of function return types, including the scalar types mentioned in chapter 1.

In Chapter 3 we explore the brand new “Spaceship Operator” which drastically simplifies 3-way comparison of two expressions.

Chapter 4 introduces another new operator, the “Null Coalesce Operators”. It’s a lot like ?: but with a built-in isset() check.

Chapter 5 demonstrates how to easily add Unicode characters to strings using a new \u{...} escape sequence.

Chapter 6 reviews how anonymous classes can be used to create classes on-the-fly, which is particularly useful for mocking and implementing simple interfaces (like loggers and observers).

Chapter 7 highlights the new ability to include multiple classes from a namespace with a single use statement.

Chapter 8 introduces the new Closure:call method which drastically simplifies binding your closures to objects at call-time.

Chapter 9 shows how generator can now return final values.

Chapter 10 explores how generators can yield from arrays, iterators, and other generators (insert Xzibit “yo dawg” joke here).

In Chapter 11 we see how PHP 7 drastically simplifies the process of generating strong random numbers for security-critical applications.

Chapter 12 demonstrates how to safely and easily perform integer division.

Chapter 13 unveils the new preg_replace_callback_array function for executing different callbacks per regular expression.

Chapter 14 covers the new IntlChar class, which helps you work with Unicode characters.

Chapter 15 shows how PHP 7 is dramatically faster than previous versions.

Chapter 16 describes how syntax is more consistent and flexible.

Chapter 17 explains how previously-reserved keywords can be used for property, constant, and method names. It contains a full list of such words.

Chapter 18 walks through the new changes to engine errors and exceptions.

Chapter 19 highlights the backwards-compatible improvements to the existing assert() feature.

Chapter 20 touches on how define() now supports array constants.

Chapter 21 demonstrates how to safely unserialize untrusted data by whitelisting which classes can be unserialized.

Chapter 22 talks about configuring session options by passing them into session_start().

Chapter 23 outlines the enhancements made to the Reflection API.

Chapter 24 shows how some integer behavior has changed in PHP 7.

Chapter 25 touches on division by zero, and how it works in the latest version of PHP.

Chapter 26 covers the new JSON library used by PHP, including a couple minor changes it introduces.

Chapter 27 demonstrates the inconsistencies in PHP 5’s foreach loops and how its behavior differs from PHP 7.

Chapter 28 describes some adjustments to the behavior of the list() construct.

Chapter 29 explains some of the changes made to function parameter behavior.

Chapter 30 unveils an old bug with custom session handlers and how PHP 7 resolves it.

Chapter 31 briefly touches on octals and how PHP 7 handles invalid ones.

Chapter 32 discusses the deprecation of PHP 4-style constructors.

Chapter 33 covers why manual salt generation is now deprecated in the password hashing API.

Chapter 34 lists all of the previously-deprecated functionality which has been fully removed from PHP 7.

Chapter 35 talks about the removal of alternative PHP tags.

Chapter 36 describes how several E_STRICT notices have been changed to other types.

Chapter 37 shows how multiple default cases are no longer permitted within a switch block.

Chapter 38 demonstrates PHP 5’s inconsistent handling of hexadecimal strings and why that incomplete functionality was removed.

Chapter 39 lists the SAPIs which are no longer supported or maintained.

Chapter 40 briefly highlights the removal of that annoying timezone warning.

And finally, the last section of the book includes a detailed list of all the breaking changes you’ll need to watch out for when migrating to PHP 7.

Other resources

These official PHP resources were a huge help during the creation of this book, and you may find them useful:

There are plenty of other great resources out there too, including some paid and some free ones:

(Any commercial products or services listed here have not been tested or endorsed by the author - they are simply provided as a jumping-off point for your continued PHP 7 education.)

Acknowledgements

I’d like to thank the following people for making this book possible:

All the programmers, testers, documentation writers, RFC authors, and everyone else who has contributed to the success of PHP. I’d have nothing to write about if it wasn’t for you.
The PHP community for sharing knowledge and expertise, thereby creating this amazing ecosystem for all developers.
Mike Spinosa, Scott Greenwell, Ben Thomas, and the whole team at Unleashed Technologies for encouraging and promoting my continuous growth.
Phil Sturgeon for being the catalyst behind my increased community involvement.

PHP Wiki and Documentation Content

This book includes some content from the PHP wiki, RFCs, and documentation. This content is licensed under CC BY 3.0. All usages (and any modifications) will be noted immediately adjacent to the content within this book.

Getting Started with PHP 7

Builds for PHP 7.0 and 7.1 are now available from both official and community repositories. In most cases, these new versions can be easily installed using your system’s package manager.

Ubuntu 14.04 and 16.04+

Ondřej Surý provides a PPA for installing PHP 7.0 and 7.1. The latest release can be installed using these commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install php7.0

(Replace 7.0 with 7.1 if desired)

The full list of available packages can be found here: https://launchpad.net/~ondrej/+archive/ubuntu/php/+packages?field.name_filter=php7.0

Debian 8 & 9

Ondřej Surý also provides PHP 7.0 and 7.1 packages for Debian which can be installed using these commands:

sudo apt-get install apt-transport-https lsb-release ca-certificates
sudo wget -O /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/php.gpg https://packages.sury.org/php/apt.gpg
sudo sh -c "echo 'deb https://packages.sury.org/php/ $(lsb_release -sc) main'" >\
 /etc/apt/sources.list.d/php.list
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install php7.0

Debian 6 & 7

PHP 7.0 can be installed using the Dotdeb repository:

Add these two lines to your /etc/apt/sources.list file, replacing <distribution> with either squeeze, wheezy, or jessie:

deb http://packages.dotdeb.org <distribution> all
deb-src http://packages.dotdeb.org <distribution> all

Add the GPG key:

wget https://www.dotdeb.org/dotdeb.gpg
sudo apt-key add dotdeb.gpg

Install PHP 7:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install php7.0

The full list of available packages can be found here: http://packages.dotdeb.org/pool/all/p/php7.0/

CentOS / RHEL

PHP 7 can be installed using the Webstatic Yum repository:

If you’re using CentOS/RHEL 7.x, run these three commands to add the repository and install PHP 7:

rpm -Uvh https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-7.noarch.rpm
rpm -Uvh https://mirror.webtatic.com/yum/el7/webtatic-release.rpm
yum install php70w

If you’re using CentOS/RHEL 6.x, run these two commands to add the repository and install PHP 7:

rpm -Uvh https://mirror.webtatic.com/yum/el6/latest.rpm
yum install php70w

The full list of available packages (including SAPIs and extensions) can be found here: https://webtatic.com/packages/php70/#sapi

Mac OS X

PHP 7 can be installed using homebrew:

brew tap homebrew/dupes
brew tap homebrew/versions
brew tap homebrew/homebrew-php
brew install php70

Or you can install it via Liip’s php-osx tool:

curl -s http://php-osx.liip.ch/install.sh | bash -s 7.0

Windows

PHP 7 distributions for Windows can be found on the windows.php.net website: http://windows.php.net/download#php-7.0

For local development, you could instead use third-party distributions like XAMPP or EasyPHP. Both come with PHP 7, MySQL, and a web server so you can get up-and-running fast.

phpbrew

phpbrew is a wonderful utility which allows you to easily build and switch between different versions of PHP on the same machine. It supports all modern versions of PHP, including PHP 7.

First we need phpbrew to fetch information about available versions:

phpbrew self-update

We can then install PHP 7.0, 7.1, or any other version:

phpbrew install php-7.0.25
phpbrew use php-7.0.25

Docker

Official Docker images for PHP can be found at https://hub.docker.com/_/php/.

docker pull php:latest

Vagrant Image

Rasmus Lerdorf, the creator of PHP, provides a Vagrant box image on his GitHub: https://github.com/rlerdorf/php7dev

It’s based on Debian 8 and is pre-configured to help develop PHP apps and extensions.

Build from Source

PHP.net also offers source packages for the alpha and beta releases which you can download and compile yourself. The source code can be downloaded from https://downloads.php.net/~ab/

Documentation on compiling PHP 7:

https://wiki.php.net/phpng
http://www.zimuel.it/install-php-7/
http://www.hashbangcode.com/blog/compiling-and-installing-php7-ubuntu

Part 1 - New Features

Perhaps the most exciting part of PHP 7 are the new features! This part of the book covers these features in detail, including examples of useful applications.

Chapter 1: Scalar Type Hints

PHP 5 introduced the ability to require function parameters to be of a certain type. This provides a safeguard against invalid uses, like passing a UNIX timestamp to a method which expects a DateTime object. It also makes it clear to other developers how the function should be used. For example, compare the following method signatures with and without type hints:

// No type hint:
function getNextWeekday($date) { /*...*/ }

// Class type hint (PHP 5):
function getNextWeekday(DateTime $date) { /*...*/ }

These hints were initially limited to just classes and interfaces, but was soon expanded to allow array and callable types too. PHP 7 extends this further by allowing scalar types like int, float, string and bool:

// Scalar type hint (PHP 7):
function getNextWeekday(int $date) { /*...*/ }

Type Checking Modes

PHP’s flexible type system is one of its most-useful features, allowing numeric strings to be used as integers and vice-versa. This tradition is continued in PHP 7 but now you have the option of enabling strict type enforcement like you’d see in other languages (such as Java or C#). This setting can be enabled using the declare construct.

Weak (“Coercive”) Type Checking

“Coercive” mode is the default type checking mode in PHP 7. This is identical to how previous versions of PHP handled scalar type hints for built-in functions. For example, take a look at the method signature for the floor function:

float floor ( float $value )

When you pass in numeric strings or integers PHP auto-converts them to a float automatically. This behavior has simply been extended to userland functions as well.

Here’s a table showing which scalar types are accepted in “Coercive” mode based on the declared type:

Allowed types, coercive mode
Type declaration	int	float	string	bool	object
int	yes	yes*	yes†	yes	no
float	yes	yes	yes†	yes	no
string	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes‡
bool	yes	yes	yes	yes	no

* Only non-NaN floats between PHP_INT_MIN and PHP_INT_MAX accepted.

† If it’s a numeric string

‡ Only if object has a __toString() method

Strong (“Strict”) Type Checking

PHP 7 introduces a new “strict” mode which is enabled by placing declare(strict_types=1); at the top of your script like so:

<?php
declare(strict_types=1);

function welcome(string $name) {
    echo 'Hello ' . $name;
}

welcome('World'); // Prints: Hello World

This declaration enables strict mode for all uses in the entire file, including built-in PHP function calls and return values (see next chapter). It does not affect any included files nor any other files which include it.

Strict mode essentially requires you to pass in exact types declared. If you don’t, a TypeError will be thrown. For example, in strict mode, you cannot use numeric strings when a float or int is expected (like you can in weak/coercive mode):

This throws an error in strict mode

<?php
declare(strict_types=1);

function welcome(string $name) {
    echo 'Hello ' . $name;
}

welcome(3);

// Fatal error: Uncaught TypeError: Argument 1 passed to welcome() must be of th\
e type string, integer given

There’s one exception to this rule though, which is that float declarations can accept int values:

Scope widening example

<?php
declare(strict_types=1);

function add(float $a, float $b): float {
    return $a + $b;
}

add(1, 2); // float(3)

Allowed types, strict mode
Type declaration	int	float	string	bool	object
int	yes	no	no	no	no
float	yes*	yes	no	no	no
string	no	no	yes	no	no
bool	no	no	no	yes	no

* Allowed due to widening primitive conversion

Mixing Modes

Because the directive is set per-file, it’s entirely possible to mix modes in your application. For example, your strictly-checked app could use a weakly-checked library (or vice versa) without any issues or complications.

Backwards Compatibility

You may no longer create classes named int, float, string or bool as these would conflict with the new scalar type hints.

Chapter 3: Combined Comparison (Spaceship) Operator

PHP 7 introduces a new three-way comparison operator <=> (T_SPACESHIP) which takes two expressions: (expr) <=> (expr). It compares both sides of the expression and, depending on the result, returns one of three values:

0	If both expressions are equal
1	If the left is greater
-1	If the right is greater

You may be familiar with this if you’ve worked with existing comparison functions like strcmp before.

It has the same precedence as the equality operator (==, ===, !=, !==) and behaves identically to the existing comparison operators (<, <=, ==, >=, >).

Comparing Values

You can compare everything from scalar values (like ints and floats) to arrays and even objects too. Here are some examples from the relevant RFC:

PHP RFC examples (licensed under CC BY 3.0)

// Integers
echo 1 <=> 1; // 0
echo 1 <=> 2; // -1
echo 2 <=> 1; // 1

// Floats
echo 1.5 <=> 1.5; // 0
echo 1.5 <=> 2.5; // -1
echo 2.5 <=> 1.5; // 1

// Strings
echo "a" <=> "a"; // 0
echo "a" <=> "b"; // -1
echo "b" <=> "a"; // 1

echo "a" <=> "aa"; // -1
echo "zz" <=> "aa"; // 1

// Arrays
echo [] <=> []; // 0
echo [1, 2, 3] <=> [1, 2, 3]; // 0
echo [1, 2, 3] <=> []; // 1
echo [1, 2, 3] <=> [1, 2, 1]; // 1
echo [1, 2, 3] <=> [1, 2, 4]; // -1

// Objects
$a = (object) ["a" => "b"];
$b = (object) ["a" => "b"];
echo $a <=> $b; // 0

$a = (object) ["a" => "b"];
$b = (object) ["a" => "c"];
echo $a <=> $b; // -1

$a = (object) ["a" => "c"];
$b = (object) ["a" => "b"];
echo $a <=> $b; // 1

// only values are compared
$a = (object) ["a" => "b"];
$b = (object) ["b" => "b"];
echo $a <=> $b; // 0

Sorting

Perhaps the best application of this operator is to simplify sorting, as functions like usort expect you to perform a comparison and return -1, 0, or 1 accordingly:

This simplification is especially apparent when comparing objects by some property value:

class Spaceship {
    public $name;
    public $maxSpeed;

    public function __construct($name, $maxSpeed) {
        $this->name = $name;
        $this->maxSpeed = $maxSpeed;
    }
}

$spaceships = [
    new Spaceship('Rebel Transport', 20),
    new Spaceship('Millenium Falcon', 80),
    new Spaceship('X-Wing Starfighter', 80),
    new Spaceship('TIE Bomber', 60),
    new Spaceship('TIE Fighter', 100),
    new Spaceship('Imperial Star Destroyer', 60),
];

// Sort the spaceships by name (in ascending order)
usort($spaceships, function ($ship1, $ship2) {
    return $ship1->name <=> $ship2->name;
});

echo $spaceships[0]->name; // "Imperial Star Destroyer"

// Sort the spaceships by speed (in descending order)
// Notice how we switch the position of $ship1 and $ship2
usort($spaceships, function ($ship1, $ship2) {
    return $ship2->maxSpeed <=> $ship1->maxSpeed;
});

echo $spaceships[0]->name; // "TIE Fighter"

Without the comparison operator, these functions would be much more complex:

usort($spaceships, function ($ship1, $ship2) {
    if ($ship1->maxSpeed == $ship2->maxSpeed) {
        return 0;
    } elseif ($ship1->maxSpeed < $ship2->maxSpeed) {
        return 1;
    } else {
        return -1;
    }
});

Sorting by multiple values

You can take advantage of the array comparison behavior to easily sort by multiple fields:

// Sort by speed (asc), then by name (asc)
usort($spaceships, function ($ship1, $ship2) {
    return [$ship1->maxSpeed, $ship1->name] <=> [$ship2->maxSpeed, $ship2->name];
});

foreach ($spaceships as $ship) {
    printf("%3d is the max speed of a(n) %s\n", $ship->maxSpeed, $ship->name);
}

// Outputs:
//  20 is the max speed of a(n) Rebel Transport
//  60 is the max speed of a(n) Imperial Star Destroyer
//  60 is the max speed of a(n) TIE Bomber
//  80 is the max speed of a(n) Millenium Falcon
//  80 is the max speed of a(n) X-Wing Starfighter
// 100 is the max speed of a(n) TIE Fighter

Chapter 5: Unicode Codepoint Escape Syntax

PHP’s lack of native Unicode support can make things difficult when coding for the web. While libraries like iconv and mbstring have simplified working with strings, there were no simple mechanisms available to create Unicode characters or strings without converting them from an HTML or JSON representation:

Workaround examples

$char = html_entity_decode('&#x2603', 0, 'UTF-8');
$char = mb_convert_encoding('&#x2603', 'UTF-8', 'HTML-ENTITIES');
$char = json_decode('"\\u2603"');

PHP 7 finally introduces native support for Unicode character escape sequences within strings, just like you’d see in Ruby or ECMAScript 6:

$char = "\u{2603}";

This makes it much easier (and quicker) to embed Unicode characters, especially ones that aren’t easily typed. These can be used in strings alongside other characters too. For example, here’s the U+202E RIGHT-TO-LEFT OVERRIDE character being used to display the string in reverse:

echo "\u{202E}This is backwards"; // displays: sdrawkcab si sihT

You can omit leading 0s if you’d like:

echo "\u{58}"; // "X"
echo "\u{0058}"; // "X"

Why the `{}`s?

Some other languages (C/C++/Java) use a format without the {} characters: \uXXXX. Unfortunately this limits their use to the Basic Multilingual Plane (U+0000 to U+FFFF). However, Unicode supports other characters beyond 16 bits.

For example, if we wanted to represent the U+1F427 PENGUIN emoji, our escape sequence would look something like this: \u1F427. Most languages would intepret this as U+1F42 GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH PSILI AND VARIA plus a 7, which is not what we want. In these languages, you’d have to encode it using two 16-bit sequences like this: \uD83D\uDC27. This isn’t very clear though.

Wrapping with {} characters allows us to easily go beyond that 16-bit limitation without sacrficing clarity: \u{1F427}

Limitations

This feature follows the behavior of all other escape sequences in PHP - they can only be used within double-quoted strings and heredocs:

Example usage

$foo = "\u{2109}\u{2134}\u{2134}";
// ℉ℴℴ

$bar = <<<EOT
    \u{212C}\u{212B}\u{211D}
EOT;
// ℬÅℝ

And like other sequences such as \t, they will not be expanded when they occur in single-quoted strings or nowdocs:

These will not work

$foo = '\u{2109}\u{2134}\u{2134}';
// \u{2109}\u{2134}\u{2134}

$bar = <<<'EOT'
    \u{212C}\u{212B}\u{211D}
EOT;
// \u{212C}\u{212B}\u{211D}

Backwards Compatibility

Double-quoted strings and heredocs containing \u{ followed by an invalid sequence will now result in an error. This can be avoided by escaping the leading backslash with another backslash (\\u{).

Part 2 - Language Changes & Improvements

PHP 7 includes several major improvements to the language, as well as some changes to existing features.

Learn about the features and changes which make PHP 7 faster and more flexible than ever!

Chapter 15: Performance

PHP 7 is faster than ever. Most real-world applications will see a 100%+ boost in performance simply by upgrading! Here are some actual benchmarks from the Zend Performance Team¹:

This improvement is largely due to the PHPNG (PHP Next-Gen) project which refactored the Zend Engine to be super-performant. Some of the under-the-hood changes include things like:

Using more-compact data structures
Reducing the number of heap allocations and deallocations
Utilizing native thread local storage

The net result is a faster PHP which also uses less memory. These changes also pave the way for future improvements, like JIT compilation, which will make PHP even faster.

Part 3 - Deprecations & Removals

PHP 7 deprecates a couple features and removes several others which worked in previous versions of PHP. You’ll want to adjust your code accordingly before upgrading to PHP 7.

Appendix - Backward Compatibility Breaks

If you’re coming from a modern version of PHP (like 5.5 or 5.6), most of your code will probably work fine as-is. Nevertheless, we’ll cover most of the important breaking changes in this section so you’ll be prepared to fix any such issues in your projects.

The majority of these BC breaks were covered in previous chapters. We’ll link back to those sections as needed.

This list comes directly from the php-src UPGRADING document as of 7 November 2015. It may not be exhaustive. Please check https://github.com/php/php-src/blob/PHP-7.0.0/UPGRADING for the latest version.

Language Changes

Variable handling

Left-to-right parsing

Indirect variable, property and method references are now interpreted with left-to-right semantics. Some examples:

  $$foo['bar']['baz'] // interpreted as ($$foo)['bar']['baz']
  $foo->$bar['baz']   // interpreted as ($foo->$bar)['baz']
  $foo->$bar['baz']() // interpreted as ($foo->$bar)['baz']()
  Foo::$bar['baz']()  // interpreted as (Foo::$bar)['baz']()

To restore the previous behavior add explicit curly braces:

  ${$foo['bar']['baz']}
  $foo->{$bar['baz']}
  $foo->{$bar['baz']}()
  Foo::{$bar['baz']}()

Global Keywords

The global keyword now only accepts simple variables. Instead of

  global $$foo->bar;

it is now required to write the following:

  global ${$foo->bar};

Parenthesis influencing behavior

Parentheses around variables or function calls no longer have any influence on behavior. For example the following code, where the result of a function call is passed to a by-reference function

  function getArray() { return [1, 2, 3]; }

  $last = array_pop(getArray());
  // Strict Standards: Only variables should be passed by reference
  $last = array_pop((getArray()));
  // Strict Standards: Only variables should be passed by reference

will now throw a strict standards error regardless of whether parentheses are used. Previously no notice was generated in the second case.

By-reference assignment ordering

Array elements or object properties that are automatically created during by-reference assignments will now result in a different order. For example

  $array = [];
  $array["a"] =& $array["b"];
  $array["b"] = 1;
  var_dump($array);

now results in the array [“a” ⇒ 1, “b” ⇒ 1], while previously the result was [“b” ⇒ 1, “a” ⇒ 1];

`list()` behavior

Variable assignment order

list() will no longer assign variables in reverse order. For example

  list($array[], $array[], $array[]) = [1, 2, 3];
  var_dump($array);

will now result in $array == [1, 2, 3] rather than [3, 2, 1]. Note that only the order of the assignments changed, but the assigned values stay the same. E.g. a normal usage like

  list($a, $b, $c) = [1, 2, 3];
  // $a = 1; $b = 2; $c = 3;

will retain its current behavior.

Empty list assignments

Empty list() assignments are no longer allowed. As such all of the following are invalid:

  list() = $a;
  list(,,) = $a;
  list($x, list(), $y) = $a;

list() no longer supports unpacking strings (while previously this was only supported in some cases). The code

  $string = "xy";
  list($x, $y) = $string;

will now result in $x == null and $y == null (without notices) instead of $x == “x” and $y == “y”. Furthermore list() is now always guaranteed to work with objects implementing ArrayAccess, e.g.

  list($a, $b) = (object) new ArrayObject([0, 1]);

will now result in $a == 0 and $b == 1. Previously both $a and $b were null.

`foreach` behavior

Interaction with internal array pointers

Iteration with foreach() no longer has any effect on the internal array pointer, which can be accessed through the current()/next()/etc family of functions. For example

  $array = [0, 1, 2];
  foreach ($array as &$val) {
      var_dump(current($array));
  }

will now print the value int(0) three times. Previously the output was int(1), int(2) and bool(false).

Array iteration by-value

When iterating arrays by-value, foreach will now always operate on a copy of the array, as such changes to the array during iteration will not influence iteration behavior. For example

  $array = [0, 1, 2];
  $ref =& $array; // Necessary to trigger the old behavior
  foreach ($array as $val) {
      var_dump($val);
      unset($array[1]);
  }

will now print all three elements (0 1 2), while previously the second element 1 was skipped (0 2).

Array iteration by-reference

When iterating arrays by-reference, modifications to the array will continue to influence the iteration. However PHP will now do a better job of maintaining a correct position in a number of cases. E.g. appending to an array during by-reference iteration

  $array = [0];
  foreach ($array as &$val) {
      var_dump($val);
      $array[1] = 1;
  }

will now iterate over the appended element as well. As such the output of this example will now be “int(0) int(1)”, while previously it was only “int(0)”.

Object iteration

Iteration of plain (non-Traversable) objects by-value or by-reference will behave like by-reference iteration of arrays. This matches the previous behavior apart from the more accurate position management mentioned in the previous point.

Iteration of Traversable objects remains unchanged.

Parameter handling

Duplicate parameter names

It is no longer possible to define two function parameters with the same name. For example, the following method will trigger a compile-time error:

  public function foo($a, $b, $unused, $unused) {
      // ...
  }

Code like this should be changed to use distinct parameter names, for example:

  public function foo($a, $b, $unused1, $unused2) {
      // ...
  }

Retrieving argument values

The func_get_arg() and func_get_args() functions will no longer return the original value that was passed to a parameter and will instead provide the current value (which might have been modified). For example

  function foo($x) {
      $x++;
      var_dump(func_get_arg(0));
  }
  foo(1);

will now print “2” instead of “1”. This code should be changed to either perform modifications only after calling func_get_arg(s)

  function foo($x) {
      var_dump(func_get_arg(0));
      $x++;
  }

or avoid modifying the parameters altogether:

  function foo($x) {
      $newX = $x + 1;
      var_dump(func_get_arg(0));
  }

Effect on backtraces

Similarly exception backtraces will no longer display the original value that was passed to a function and show the modified value instead. For example

  function foo($x) {
      $x = 42;
      throw new Exception;
  }
  foo("string");

will now result in the stack trace

  Stack trace:
  #0 file.php(4): foo(42)
  #1 {main}

while previously it was:

  Stack trace:
  #0 file.php(4): foo('string')
  #1 {main}

While this should not impact runtime behavior of your code, it is worthwhile to be aware of this difference for debugging purposes.

The same limitation also applies to debug_backtrace() and other functions inspecting function arguments.

Integer handling

Invalid octal literals

Invalid octal literals (containing digits larger than 7) now produce compile errors. For example, the following is no longer valid:

  $i = 0781; // 8 is not a valid octal digit!

Previously the invalid digits (and any following valid digits) were simply ignored. As such $i previously held the value 7, because the last two digits were silently discarded.

Negative bitwise shifting

Bitwise shifts by negative numbers will now throw an ArithmeticError:

  var_dump(1 >> -1);
  // ArithmeticError: Bit shift by negative number

Left bitwise shifts

Left bitwise shifts by a number of bits beyond the bit width of an integer will always result in 0:

  var_dump(1 << 64); // int(0)

Previously the behavior of this code was dependent on the used CPU architecture. For example on x86 (including x86-64) the result was int(1), because the shift operand was wrapped.

Right bitwise shifts

Similarly right bitwise shifts by a number of bits beyond the bit width of an integer will always result in 0 or -1 (depending on sign):

  var_dump(1 >> 64);  // int(0)
  var_dump(-1 >> 64); // int(-1)

String handling

Hexadecimal numeric strings

Strings that contain hexadecimal numbers are no longer considered to be numeric and don’t receive special treatment anymore. Some examples of the new behavior:

  var_dump("0x123" == "291");     // bool(false)     (previously true)
  var_dump(is_numeric("0x123"));  // bool(false)     (previously true)
  var_dump("0xe" + "0x1");        // int(0)          (previously 16)

  var_dump(substr("foo", "0x1")); // string(3) "foo" (previously "oo")
  // Notice: A non well formed numeric value encountered

filter_var() can be used to check if a string contains a hexadecimal number or convert such a string into an integer:

$str = "0xffff";
$int = filter_var($str, FILTER_VALIDATE_INT, FILTER_FLAG_ALLOW_HEX);
if (false === $int) {
    throw new Exception("Invalid integer!");
}
var_dump($int); // int(65535)

Unicode escape sequence

Due to the addition of the Unicode Codepoint Escape Syntax for double-quoted strings and heredocs, “\u{“ followed by an invalid sequence will now result in an error:

  $str = "\u{xyz}"; // Fatal error: Invalid UTF-8 codepoint escape sequence

To avoid this the leading backslash should be escaped:

  $str = "\\u{xyz}"; // Works fine

However, “\u” without a following { is unaffected. As such the following code won’t error and will work the same as before:

  $str = "\u202e"; // Works fine

Error handling

Errors as throwables

There are now two exception classes: Exception and Error. Both classes implement a new interface Throwable. Type hints in exception handling code may need to be changed to account for this.

Fatal errors

Some fatal errors and recoverable fatal errors now throw an Error instead. As Error is a separate class from Exception, these exceptions will not be caught by existing try/catch blocks.

For the recoverable fatal errors which have been converted into an exception, it is no longer possible to silently ignore the error from an error handler. In particular, it is no longer possible to ignore type hint failures.

Parser errors

Parser errors now generate a ParseError that extends Error. Error handling for eval()s on potentially invalid code should be changed to catch ParseError in addition to the previous return value / error_get_last() based handling.

Internal class constructor failures

Constructors of internal classes will now always throw an exception on failure. Previously some constructors returned NULL or an unusable object.

Reclassification of E_STRICT

The error level of some E_STRICT notices has been changed.

Other language changes

Static calls to non-static methods

Removed support for static calls to non-static methods from an incompatible $this context. In this case $this will not be defined, but the call will be allowed with a deprecation notice. An example:

  class A {
      public function test() { var_dump($this); }
  }

  // Note: Does NOT extend A
  class B {
      public function callNonStaticMethodOfA() { A::test(); }
  }

  (new B)->callNonStaticMethodOfA();

  // Deprecated: Non-static method A::test() should not be called statically
  // Notice: Undefined variable $this
  NULL

Note that this only applies to calls from an incompatible context. If class B extended from A the call would be allowed without any notices.

Reserved words

It is no longer possible to use the following class, interface and trait names (case-insensitive):

  bool
  int
  float
  string
  null
  false
  true

This applies to class/interface/trait declarations, class_alias() and use statements.

Furthermore the following class, interface and trait names are now reserved for future use, but do not yet throw an error when used:

  resource
  object
  mixed
  numeric

Parenthesis requirement for `yield`

The yield language construct no longer requires parentheses when used in an expression context. It is now a right-associative operator with precedence between the “print” and “⇒” operators. This can result in different behavior in some cases, for example:

  echo yield -1;
  // Was previously interpreted as
  echo (yield) - 1;
  // And is now interpreted as
  echo yield (-1);

  yield $foo or die;
  // Was previously interpreted as
  yield ($foo or die);
  // And is now interpreted as
  (yield $foo) or die;

Such cases can always be resolved by adding additional parentheses.

Other removals

Removed ASP (<%) and script (<script language=php>) tags. (RFC: https://wiki.php.net/rfc/remove_alternative_php_tags)
Removed support for assigning the result of new by reference.
Removed support for scoped calls to non-static methods from an incompatible $this context. See details in https://wiki.php.net/rfc/incompat_ctx.
Removed support for #-style comments in ini files. Use ;-style comments instead.
$HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA is no longer available. Use the php://input stream instead.

Standard Library Changes

substr() now returns an empty string instead of FALSE when the truncation happens on boundaries.
call_user_method() and call_user_method_array() no longer exists.
ob_start() no longer issues an E_ERROR, but instead an E_RECOVERABLE_ERROR in case an output buffer is created in an output buffer handler.
The internal sorting algorithm has been improved, what may result in different sort order of elements that compare as equal.
Removed dl() function on fpm-fcgi.
setcookie() with an empty cookie name now issues an E_WARNING and doesn’t send an empty set-cookie header line anymore.

Other Changes

Curl

Removed support for disabling the CURLOPT_SAFE_UPLOAD option. All curl file uploads must use the curl_file / CURLFile APIs.

Date

Removed $is_dst parameter from mktime() and gmmktime().

DBA

dba_delete() now returns false if the key was not found for the inifile handler, too.

GMP

Requires libgmp version 4.2 or newer now.
gmp_setbit() and gmp_clrbit() now return FALSE for negative indices, making them consistent with other GMP functions.

Intl

Removed deprecated aliases datefmt_set_timezone_id() and IntlDateFormatter::setTimeZoneID(). Use datefmt_set_timezone() and IntlDateFormatter::setTimeZone() instead.

libxml

Added LIBXML_BIGLINES parser option. It’s available starting with libxml 2.9.0 and adds suppport for line numbers >16-bit in the error reporting.

Mcrypt

Removed deprecated mcrypt_generic_end() alias in favor of mcrypt_generic_deinit().
Removed deprecated mcrypt_ecb(), mcrypt_cbc(), mcrypt_cfb() and mcrypt_ofb() functions in favor of mcrypt_encrypt() and mcrypt_decrypt() with an MCRYPT_MODE_* flag.

Session

session_start() accepts all INI settings as array. e.g. [‘cache_limiter’⇒‘private’] sets session.cache_limiter=private. It also supports ‘read_and_close’ which closes session data immediately after read data.
Save handler accepts validate_sid(), update_timestamp() which validates session ID existence, updates timestamp of session data. Compatibility of old user defined save handler is retained.
SessionUpdateTimestampHandlerInterface is added. validateSid(), updateTimestamp() is defined in the interface.
session.lazy_write(default=On) INI setting enables only write session data when session data is updated.

Opcache

Removed opcache.load_comments configuration directive. Now doc comments loading costs nothing and always enabled.

OpenSSL

Removed the “rsa_key_size” SSL context option in favor of automatically setting the appropriate size given the negotiated crypto algorithm.
Removed “CN_match” and “SNI_server_name” SSL context options. Use automatic detection or the “peer_name” option instead.

PCRE:

Removed support for /e (PREG_REPLACE_EVAL) modifier. Use preg_replace_callback() instead.

PDO_pgsql:

Removed PGSQL_ATTR_DISABLE_NATIVE_PREPARED_STATEMENT attribute in favor of ATTR_EMULATE_PREPARES.

Standard:

Removed string category support in setlocale(). Use the LC_* constants instead.
Removed set_magic_quotes_runtime() and its alias magic_quotes_runtime().

JSON:

Rejected RFC 7159 incompatible number formats in json_decode string - top level (07, 0xff, .1, -.1) and all levels ([1.], [1.e1])
Calling json_decode with 1st argument equal to empty PHP string or value that after casting to string is empty string (NULL, FALSE) results in JSON syntax error.

Stream:

Removed set_socket_blocking() in favor of its alias stream_set_blocking().

XSL:

Removed xsl.security_prefs ini option. Use XsltProcessor::setSecurityPrefs() instead.

Notes

Part 2 - Language Changes & Improvements

1https://www.zend.com/en/resources/php7_infographic↩

Table of Contents

Sample

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

Weak (“Coercive”) Type Checking

Strong (“Strict”) Type Checking

Mixing Modes

Backwards Compatibility

Further Reading

Chapter 3: Combined Comparison (Spaceship) Operator

Comparing Values

Sorting

Sorting by multiple values

Further Reading

Chapter 5: Unicode Codepoint Escape Syntax

Why the {}s?

Limitations

Backwards Compatibility

Further Reading:

Part 2 - Language Changes & Improvements

Chapter 15: Performance

Further Reading

Part 3 - Deprecations & Removals

Appendix - Backward Compatibility Breaks

Language Changes

Variable handling

Left-to-right parsing

Global Keywords

Parenthesis influencing behavior

By-reference assignment ordering

list() behavior

Variable assignment order

Empty list assignments

foreach behavior

Interaction with internal array pointers

Array iteration by-value

Array iteration by-reference

Object iteration

Parameter handling

Duplicate parameter names

Retrieving argument values

Effect on backtraces

Integer handling

Invalid octal literals

Negative bitwise shifting

Left bitwise shifts

Right bitwise shifts

String handling

Hexadecimal numeric strings

Unicode escape sequence

Error handling

Errors as throwables

Fatal errors

Parser errors

Internal class constructor failures

Reclassification of E_STRICT

Other language changes

Static calls to non-static methods

Reserved words

Parenthesis requirement for yield

Other removals

Standard Library Changes

Why the `{}`s?

`list()` behavior

`foreach` behavior

Parenthesis requirement for `yield`