With all versions of PHP 7 now officially EOL (end of life) any plugins you develop, or have developed, must support PHP 8. While WordPress does run on PHP 8, many plugins do still not support it fully. In this workshop, we'll look at how to can test your plugins for PHP compatibility, in order to get them updated.

1. Jonathan Bossenger
Let’s Code
Learn.WordPress.org
Testing plugins for PHP 8

2. 2
👋🏽
Welcome!
As you join, please make sure you have your local
development environment ready:
• A local WordPress installation
• A code editor like VSCode or Sublime
• https://github.com/jonathanbossenger/wp-
learn-php8/releases/download/1.0.0/wp-learn-
php8.1.0.0.zip
Then, let everyone know in the chat where you’re
joining us from…
Hello!
○ My name is Jonathan Bossenger
○ From Cape Town, South Africa
○ Developer educator at Automattic
○ Sponsored to work with the Training Team
○ jonathanbossenger.com

3. Learn.WordPress.org
Testing plugins for
PHP 8 Compatibility
Jonathan Bossenger

4. Announcements
○ Welcome.
○ Please let me know if you can’t see this slide!
○ We are presenting in focus mode, but please feel free to enable your video.
○ You are welcome to ask questions.
○ You are welcome to post questions in the chat, or unmute to ask questions.

5. Announcements
○ Make sure your local install is ready
○ https://github.com/jonathanbossenger/wp-learn-php8/releases/download/1.0.0/wp-
learn-php8.1.0.0.zip
○ If I am going too fast, please let me know!
○ We will be posting this session to https://wordpress.tv/ afterwards
○ For more WordPress focused content please visit https://learn.wordpress.org/

6. Learning Outcomes
1. WordPress and PHP 8
2. Where to find information on PHP version changes
3. Two ways to test your plugins for PHP compatibility
• Manual testing process
• Automated testing

7. WordPress and PHP 8
○ https://make.wordpress.org/core/2020/11/23/wordpress-and-php-8-0/
○ https://wptavern.com/getting-your-wordpress-plugins-and-themes-ready-for-php-8
○ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PHP#Release_history
○ https://www.php.net/manual/en/appendices.php

8. Manually testing
○ https://localwp.com/help-docs/advanced/local-and-php-8/
○ WordPress Playground Extension for VS code (beta)
○ https://wordpress.org/documentation/article/debugging-in-wordpress/

9. Automated testing
○ PHPCompatibility
• https://github.com/PHPCompatibility/PHPCompatibility
⁃ https://getcomposer.org/
⁃ https://github.com/squizlabs/PHP_CodeSniffer
⁃ https://github.com/WordPress/WordPress-Coding-Standards

10. Resources
○ https://make.wordpress.org/core/2020/11/23/wordpress-and-php-8-0/
○ https://wptavern.com/getting-your-wordpress-plugins-and-themes-ready-for-php-8
○ https://www.php.net/manual/en/appendices.php
○ https://localwp.com/help-docs/advanced/local-and-php-8/
○ https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=WordPressPlayground.wordpress-playground
○ https://wordpress.org/documentation/article/debugging-in-wordpress/
○ https://github.com/PHPCompatibility/PHPCompatibility
○ https://getcomposer.org/
○ https://github.com/squizlabs/PHP_CodeSniffer
○ https://github.com/WordPress/WordPress-Coding-Standards
○ https://github.com/PHPCompatibility/PHPCompatibility/issues/808