PHP in 2013

PHP 5.3

Introduced minor features

PHP 5.3

Introduced minor features
Namespaces

PHP 5.3

Introduced minor features
Namespaces
Anonymous functions

Lifecycle

No real defined support lifetime
No plan for 5.4

Release process

Fast release cycle! (well, annual)
Voting and RFC process for new features
Feature freeze at β1 in each release cycle

Release process

Fast release cycle! (well, annual)
Voting and RFC process for new features
Feature freeze at β1 in each release cycle
Applies to 5.4 and later only

PHP 5.4

~~Traits~~ Mixins
Object support in anonymous functions
Many misfeatures removed or deprecated

PHP 5.3

One year of security fixes
Complete end of life: July 11, 2014

PHP 5.4

Full support until Q2 2014
Security fixes until Q2 2015
Most distros are now shipping 5.4

PHP 5.5

It's out now!

Generators

Easy way of implementing iterators
Simplified syntax with yield

Generators

Example: implement a forward-only xrange()

Generators


class RangeIterator implements Iterator {
    private $start;
    private $limit;
    private $step;
    private $current;

    public function __construct($start, $limit, $step = 1) {
        $this->start = $start;
        $this->limit = $limit;
        $this->step = $step;
        $this->current = $start;
    }

    public function current() {
        return $this->current;
    }

    public function key() {
        return ($this->current - $this->start) / $this->step;
    }

    public function next() {
        $this->current += $this->step;
    }

    public function rewind() {
        $this->current = $this->start;
    }

    public function valid() {
        return ($this->current >= $this->start && $this->current <= $this->limit);
    }
}

function xrange($start, $limit, $step = 1) {
    return new RangeIterator($start, $limit, $step);
}

Generators


function xrange($start, $limit, $step = 1) {
  for ($i = $start; $i <= $limit; $i += $step) {
    yield $i;
  }
}

Generators


function xrange($start, $limit, $step = 1) {
  for ($i = $start; $i <= $limit; $i += $step) {
    yield $i;
  }
}

foreach (xrange(1, 9, 2) as $number) {
  echo "$number\n";
}

Finally, finally

Example: removing temporary files

Finally, finally


function do_something() {
  $temp = tempnam('/tmp', 'foo');

  try {
    ...
    unlink($temp);
  } catch (FrameworkException $e) {
    ...
    unlink($temp);
  } catch (Exception $e) {
    unlink($temp);
    throw $e;
  }
}

Finally, finally


class TemporaryFile {
  function __construct($directory, $prefix) {
    $this->file = tempnam($directory, $prefix);
  }

  function __destruct() { unlink($this->file); }
  function __toString() { return $this->file; }
}

function do_something() {
  $temp = new TemporaryFile('/tmp, 'foo');
  try { ... }
  catch (FrameworkException $e) { ... }
}

Finally, finally


function do_something() {
  $temp = tempnam('/tmp', 'FOO');

  try {
    ...
  } catch (FrameworkException $e) {
    ...
  } finally {
    unlink($temp);
  }
}

Finally, finally


function f() {
  try {
    return 'try';
  } finally {
    return 'finally';
  }
}

echo f();

Password hashing

Previous advice was to use crypt()
Easy to misuse

Password hashing


echo crypt('foo', '$2a$01234567890123456789a');

Password hashing


password_hash($password, $algo, $options)
password_verify($password, $hash)
password_get_info($hash)
password_needs_rehash($hash, $algo, $options)

Password hashing


// Creating a hash:
$hash = password_hash($passwd, PASSWORD_DEFAULT);

// Verifying a password:
if (password_verify($passwd, $hash)) {
  // do stuff
}

Password hashing

PASSWORD_DEFAULT is equivalent to PASSWORD_BCRYPT right now
password_hash() hashes are forward compatible
PASSWORD_DEFAULT may change in new versions

Password hashing

Compatibility library on GitHub for PHP 5.3.7 and later
Search for password_compat

OPcache

Opcode caching
Bundled with PHP 5.5
Based on Zend Optimizer+

OPcache


zend_extension=${extension_dir}/opcache.so

OPcache

	5.4	5.5	5.5 + OPcache
php.net	308.73	315.77	681.76
sf 2.1 based	10.65	10.92	21.40
WordPress 3.5.2	23.72	24.93	79.52

Requests per second
mod_php on Apache 2.4

foreach unpacking


$array = [[1, 2], [3, 4]];
foreach ($array as $item) {
  list($a, $b) = $item;
  // ...
}

foreach unpacking


$array = [[1, 2], [3, 4]];
foreach ($array as list($a, $b)) {
  // ...
}

empty()


empty(my_function());

Literal dereferencing


var_dump([1, 2, 3][0]);
var_dump('PHP'[0]);

Literal dereferencing


var_dump([1, 2, 3][0]);
var_dump('PHP'[0]);


1
P

::class


namespace Name\Space;
class ClassName {}

echo ClassName::class;

::class


namespace Name\Space;
class ClassName {}

echo ClassName::class;


Name\Space\ClassName

Immutable DateTime

Called DateTimeImmutable
Mutator methods such as add(), modify() and sub() return a new object
Otherwise works just like DateTime

Windows support

Windows XP and 2003 support dropped

Case insensitivity

PHP used to fold method and function names on a locale specific basis
Not such a good idea

Case insensitivity

ASCII rules are now used
May cause issues in non-English codebases that relied on accented or non-Latin case folding

Case insensitivity


function función() {}

FUNCIÓN();

pack() and unpack()

The a and A format codes behave like Perl now
Slight incompatibility; use Z for the old behaviour

mysql → PDO


$db = mysql_connect('localhost', 'user', 'pass');
mysql_select_db('db', $db);
$id = mysql_real_escape_string($_GET['id'], $db);
$st = mysql_query("SELECT name FROM user WHERE id = $id");

while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($st)) {
  echo "Hi, $row[name]!";
}

mysql → PDO


$db = mysql_connect('localhost', 'user', 'pass');
mysql_select_db('db', $db);
$id = mysql_real_escape_string($_GET['id'], $db);
$st = mysql_query("SELECT name FROM user WHERE id = $id");

while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($st)) {
  echo "Hi, $row[name]!";
}

mysql → PDO


$db = new PDO('mysql:host=localhost;dbname=db', 'user', 'pass');
$db->setAttribute(PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE, PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION);
$st = $db->prepare('SELECT name FROM user WHERE id = :id');
$st->execute(['id' => $_GET['id']]);

while ($row = $st->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC)) {
  echo "Hi, $row[name]!";
}

preg_replace() /e modifier


preg_replace(
  '(<h([1-6])>(.*?)</h\1>)e',
  '"<h$1>" . strtoupper("$2") . "</h$1>"',
  $html
);

preg_replace() /e modifier


preg_replace_callback(
  '(<h([1-6])>(.*?)</h\1>)',
  eval('"<h$1>" . strtoupper("$2") . "</h$1>"'),
  $html
)

preg_replace() /e modifier


preg_replace_callback(
  '(<h([1-6])>(.*?)</h\1>)',
  eval('"<h$1>" . strtoupper("$2") . "</h$1>"'),
  $html
)

preg_replace() /e modifier


preg_replace_callback(
  '(<h([1-6])>(.*?)</h\1>)',
  function (array $matches) {
    return "<h$matches[1]>"
          .strtoupper($matches[2])
	  ."</h$matches[1]>";
  },
  $html
)

Getting PHP 5.5

Shared hosting: ask your provider
(Maybe consider a VPS)

Getting PHP 5.5

Debian: available in Dotdeb for both Squeeze and Wheezy, and already in Sid
Ubuntu: available in Ondřej Surý's php5-experimental PPA
RHEL/CentOS: available in Remi Collet's testing repo

Getting PHP 5.5

Windows: builds available at http://windows.php.net/download/
OS X: in homebrew-php as php55

Getting PHP 5.5

Compile from source
Does require lots of library dependencies
apt-get build-dep php5 is your friend on Debian-based distros

PuPHPet

https://puphpet.com
Uses Vagrant and Puppet to provide PHP development VMs
Supports PHP 5.5 on Debian Wheezy and Ubuntu 10.04 and 12.04

Questions?

PHP 5.5 Migration Guide: http://php.net/migration55
password_compat: https://github.com/ircmaxell/password_compat
Generator examples: https://github.com/nikic/iter
Slides: http://www.adamharvey.name/oscon/