PHP 5.4 RC1

[Avi]

http://www.php.net/

Server-side web programming language. If you don't know what it is, you don't need it. :p

Changes from NEWS:

  Quote

11 Nov 2011, PHP 5.4.0 RC1

General improvements:

• Changed silent conversion of array to string to produce a notice. (Patrick)
  
• Added class member access on instantiation (e.g. (new foo)->bar()) support. (Felipe)
  

CLI SAPI:

• Fixed bug #60112 (If URI does not contain a file, index.php is not served).
  (Laruence)
  
• Fixed bug #60115 (memory definitely lost in cli server). (Laruence)
  
• Fixed bug #60146 (Last 2 lines of page not being output). (Laruence)
  
• Fixed bug #60180 ($_SERVER["PHP_SELF"] incorrect). (Laruence)
  
• Fixed bug #60189 (php logo can not be displayed). (Laruence)
  

Core:

• Fixed bug #60120 (proc_open's streams may hang with stdin/out/err when
  the data exceeds or is equal to 2048 bytes). (Pierre, Pascal Borreli)
  
• Fixed bug #60174 (Notice when array in method prototype error). (Laruence)
  
• Fixed bug #60169 (Conjunction of ternary and list crashes PHP).
  (Laruence)
  
• Fixed bug #55475 (is_a() triggers autoloader, new optional 3rd argument to
  is_a and is_subclass_of). (alan_k)
  

Oracle Database extension (OCI8):

• Increased maxium Oracle error message buffer length for new 11.2.0.3 size. (Chris Jones)
  

SPL extension

• Reverted changes that required constructor overrides to invoke the parent
  constructor in several SPL classes and applied 5.3 fixes instead.
  Related bugs: #54384, #55175 and #55300.
  
• Fixed bug #60201 (SplFileObject::setCsvControl does not expose third
  argument via Reflection). (Peter)
  

Tokenizer extension

• Fixed bug #54089 (token_get_all with regards to __halt_compiler is
  not binary safe). (Nikita Popov)
  

SAPI:

• Fixed bug #60205 (possible integer overflow in content_length). (Laruence)
  

[Clearskies]

  On 12/11/2011 at 12:17, Avi said:

Server-side web programming language. If you don't know what it is, you don't need it. :p

Correction: If you don't know what it is, you need it more. ;)

In all seriousness, with the exception of some special cases, a web developer who doesn't know PHP, should.

[HeyRatFans]

5.4 is shaping up to be a really good release.

  Quote

Added class member access on instantiation (e.g. (new foo)->bar()) support. (Felipe)

This and traits (aka mixins) are going to completely change PHP again. I'm really looking forward to it's final release.

[iuerg87yerg879e0rg9erugjer]

  On 12/11/2011 at 13:00, HeyRatFans said:

5.4 is shaping up to be a really good release.

This and traits (aka mixins) are going to completely change PHP again. I'm really looking forward to it's final release.

i am installing 5.4 on my dev server purely for this reason

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

  On 12/11/2011 at 12:24, ClearSkies said:

Correction: If you don't know what it is, you need it more. ;)

In all seriousness, with the exception of some special cases, a web developer who doesn't know PHP, should.

Which is a shame really, since it's not that good (There are better languages and runtimes)

[Aethec]

  On 12/11/2011 at 13:00, HeyRatFans said:

This and traits (aka mixins) are going to completely change PHP again. I'm really looking forward to it's final release.

...wait.Before this update you couldn't even do new Foo().Bar() ? Seriously?

[Argi]

Traits look fairly cool! Will save quite a bit of copy pasting that has to go on in factory classes.

[greenwizard88]

  On 12/11/2011 at 12:24, ClearSkies said:

Correction: If you don't know what it is, you need it more. ;)

In all seriousness, with the exception of some special cases, a web developer who doesn't know PHP, should.

Correction: If you know what it is, you need it less ;)

At least it was like that at 3.5... I've since stopped using it on a daily basis

[HeyRatFans]

  On 12/11/2011 at 21:38, Aethec said:

...wait.Before this update you couldn't even do new Foo().Bar() ? Seriously?

Yep :( An annoying oversight by the PHP developers for such a long time. Glad they've fixed it for 5.4!

Now all they need to do is fix all the bugs with the DateTime object and I'll be a happy bunny.