The document summarizes what's new in PHP 5.5, including the introduction of generators, the finally block, and Opcache being included by default. It discusses removed and deprecated features and provides an overview of the current release status.

1. What’s new in PHP 5.5
Tom Corrigan
@thetommygnr
Melbourne PHP Users Group
May 2013
Wednesday, 22 May 13

2. Overview
• What’s new
• What’s gone
• What’s deprecated
• Current status of PHP 5.5
Wednesday, 22 May 13

3. Generators
• Syntactical sugar to avoid iterator boilerplate
• Introduce a new keyword yield
• https://wiki.php.net/rfc/generators
Wednesday, 22 May 13

4. Before generators
function getLinesFromFile($fileName) {
if (!$fileHandle = fopen($fileName, 'r')) {
return;
}
$lines = [];
while (false !== $line = fgets($fileHandle)) {
$lines[] = $line;
}
fclose($fileHandle);
return $lines;
}
$lines = getLinesFromFile($fileName);
foreach ($lines as $line) {
// do something with $line
}
Wednesday, 22 May 13

5. Generator in action
function getLinesFromFile($fileName) {
if (!$fileHandle = fopen($fileName, 'r')) {
return;
}
while (false !== $line = fgets($fileHandle)) {
yield $line;
}
fclose($fileHandle);
}
$lines = getLinesFromFile($fileName);
foreach ($lines as $line) {
// do something with $line
}
Wednesday, 22 May 13

6. Generator free approach
function doShit($filename){
if (!$fileHandle = fopen($fileName, 'r')) {
return;
}
while (false !== $line = fgets($fileHandle)) {
// do something with $line
}
fclose($fileHandle);
}
Wednesday, 22 May 13

7. Generators - my opinion
• Few use cases
• Every example I found demonstrated the functionality rather than its
utility
• More readable alternatives
Wednesday, 22 May 13

8. Finally
• New addition to try...catch blocks
• Code within a finally block will always be executed. Always!
• Useful for closing DB connections, file handles etc
• https://wiki.php.net/rfc/finally
Wednesday, 22 May 13

9. The problem:
$db = mysqli_connect();
try {
call_some_function($db); //function may throw exceptions which we can ‘t
handle
} catch (Exception $e) {
mysqli_close($db);
throw $e;
}
mysql_close($db);
Wednesday, 22 May 13

10. Finally: a solution
$db = mysqli_connect();
try {
call_some_function($db);//function may throw exceptions which we can ‘t
handle
} finally {
mysqli_close($db);
}
Wednesday, 22 May 13

11. Finally block is always executed
try {
return 2;
} finally {
echo "this will be calledn";
}
//this will never be called
echo "you can not see me";
this will be called
//return int(2)
Wednesday, 22 May 13

12. Opcache
• Zend Optimizer+ has been open sourced and renamed Opcache
• Included by default in PHP 5.5+
• This is a big win, it’s the fastest opcode cache for PHP, between
5%-20% faster than APC
• https://wiki.php.net/rfc/optimizerplus
Wednesday, 22 May 13

13. What about APC?
• No current plans to support PHP > 5.4
• Does it matter?
• Was always behind new PHP releases by months
• Opcache is faster
• Opcaches ships with PHP 5.5+
Wednesday, 22 May 13

14. APCu
• APC without the bytecode cache (userland caching only)
• PHP API maintains BC with APC
• https://github.com/krakjoe/apcu
Wednesday, 22 May 13

15. DateTimeImmutable
• DateTime
$dt = new DateTime(‘2013-05-21’);
$dt2 = $dt->modify(‘+1 day’);
echo $dt->format(‘Y-m-d’); //2013-5-22
echo $dt2->format(‘Y-m-d’); //2013-5-22
• DateTimeImmutable
$dt = new DateTimeImmutable(‘2013-05-21’);
$dt2 = $dt->modify(‘+1 day’);
echo $dt->format(‘Y-m-d’); //2013-5-21
echo $dt2->format(‘Y-m-d’); //2013-5-22
• Warning: Extends DateTime, type hints won’t save you
Wednesday, 22 May 13

16. Constant array and string
dereferencing
You can now do this:
echo [“one”, “two”, “three”][1];
=> “two”
And this:
echo “onetwothree”[1];
=> “n”
Wednesday, 22 May 13

17. list() inside foreach
$talks = [
[
"speaker" => "Tom Corrigan",
"talk" => "What’s new in PHP 5.5",
],
[
"speaker" => "Rick Measham",
"talk" => "Hacker tips for getting hired",
],
];
foreach ($talks as list($speaker, $talk){
echo $speaker. " on " . $talk . PHP_EOL;
}
// Tom Corrigan on What’s new in PHP 5.5
// Rick Measham on Hacker tips for getting hired
•https://wiki.php.net/rfc/foreachlist
Wednesday, 22 May 13

18. array_column()
$talks = [
[
"speaker" => "Tom Corrigan",
"talk" => "What’s new in PHP 5.5",
],
[
"speaker" => "Rick Measham",
"talk" => "Hacker tips for getting hired",
],
];
$speakers = array_column($talks, "speaker");
//array
[0] Tom Corrigan
[1] Rick Measham
• https://wiki.php.net/rfc/array_column
Wednesday, 22 May 13

19. Password hash
• Colby did a talk last month
• Use it today in PHP 5.3.7+ https://github.com/ircmaxell/
password_compat
Wednesday, 22 May 13

20. Tons of new stuff in ext/intl
• Didn’t get time to cover this one, sorry!
• See: http://www.php.net/manual/en/migration55.classes.php
Wednesday, 22 May 13

21. Removed/changed
• No Windows XP or 2003 support
• Case insensitivity no longer locale specific
• Logo functions removed: php_logo_guid(), php_egg_logo_guid() etc
• Changes to pack() and unpack() BC BREAK
• http://www.php.net/manual/en/migration55.incompatible.php
Wednesday, 22 May 13

22. Deprecated
• ext/mysql !!!!
• preg_replace() /e modifier, use preg_replace_callback() (good!)
• IntlDateFormatter::setTimeZoneID() and datefmt_set_timezone_id()
• some mcrypt functions
• http://www.php.net/manual/en/migration55.deprecated.php
Wednesday, 22 May 13

23. Current status
• First Release Candidate: 9 May
• Second RC due out on 23rd May
• Expected stable release soon
Wednesday, 22 May 13

24. Questions?
Wednesday, 22 May 13