PHP-5.1 around the corner

Here's a tidied up excerpt of the current NEWS file with all relevant changes since PHP 5.0, which may help on the decision to upgrade (even from PHP 4 :))

Fixes

• More than 350

Changes

• Changed PDO constants to class constants (PDO::CONST_NAME)


• Changed SQLite extension to be a shared module in Windows distribution


• Changed "instanceof" and "catch" operators, is_a() and is_subclass_of() functions to not call __autoload()


• Changed sha1_file() and md5_file() functions to use streams instead of low level IO


• Changed abstract private methods to be not allowed anymore


• Changed stream_filter_(ap|pre)pend() to return resource


• Changed mysqli_exception and sqlite_exception to use RuntimeException as base if SPL extension is present

Extensions moved to PECL

• cpdf


• dio


• fam


• ingres_ii


• mcve


• mnogosearch


• oracle


• ovrimos


• pfpro


• w32api


• yp

Upgraded PEAR

• to channel-featuring v1.4

Upgraded bundled libraries

• PCRE library to version 6.2


• SQLite 3 library in ext/pdo_sqlite to 3.2.7


• SQLite 2 library in ext/sqlite to 2.8.16

Upgraded bundled libraries in Windows distribution

• zlib 1.2.3


• curl 7.14.0


• openssl 0.9.8


• ming 0.3b


• libpq (PostgreSQL) 8.0.1

Improvements and Additions

• Improved SPL extension
  
  
  
  • Moved RecursiveArrayIterator from examples into extension
  
  
  • Moved RecursiveFilterIterator from examples into extension
  
  
  • Added SplObjectStorage
  
  
  • Made all SPL constants class constants
  
  
  • Renamed CachingRecursiveIterator to RecursiveCachingIterator to follow Recursive<*>Iterator naming scheme
  
  
  
  


• Added support for class constants and static members for internal classes


• Added PDO::MYSQL_ATTR_USE_BUFFERED_QUERY parameter for pdo_mysql


• Added date_timezone_set() function to set the timezone that the date functions will use


• Added pg_fetch_all_columns() function to fetch all values of a column from a result cursor


• Added support for LOCK_EX flag for file_put_contents()


• Implemented feature request #33452


• Improved PHP extension loading mechanism with support for module dependencies and conflicts


• Allowed return by reference from internal functions


• Rewrote strtotime() with support for timezones and many new formats. Implements feature requests #21399, #26694, #28088, #29150, #29585 and #29595


• Added bindto socket context option


• Added offset parameter to the stream_copy_to_stream() function


• Added offset & length parameters to substr_count() function


• Removed php_check_syntax() function which never worked properly


• Removed garbage manager in Zend Engine which results in more aggressive freeing of data


• Improved interactive mode of PHP CLI


• Improved performance of:


• general execution/compilation


• switch() statement


• several array functions


• virtual path handling by adding a realpath() cache


• variable fetches


• magic method invocations


• Improved support for embedded server in mysqli


• Improved mysqli extension


• added constructor for mysqli_stmt and mysqli_result classes


• added new function mysqli_get_charset()


• added new function mysqli_set_charset()


• added new class mysqli_driver


• added new class mysqli_warning


• added new class mysqli_execption


• added new class mysqli_sql_exception


• Improved SPL extension


• added standard hierarchy of Exception classes


• added interface Countable


• added interfaces Subject and Observer


• added spl_autoload*() functions


• converted several 5.0 examples into c code


• added class FileObject


• added possibility to use a string with class_parents() and class_implements()


• Added man pages for "phpize" and "php-config" scripts


• Added support for .cc files in extensions


• Added PHP_INT_MAX and PHP_INT_SIZE as predefined constants


• Added user opcode API that allow overloading of opcode handlers


• Added an optional remove old session parameter to session_regenerate_id()


• Added array type hinting


• Added the tidy_get_opt_doc() function to return documentation for configuration options in tidy


• Added support for .cc files in extensions


• Added imageconvolution() function which can be used to apply a custom 3x3 matrix convolution to an image


• Added optional first parameter to XsltProcessor::registerPHPFunctions to only allow certain functions to be called from XSLT


• Added the ability to override the autotools executables used by the buildconf script via the PHP_AUTOCONF and PHP_AUTOHEADER environmental variables


• Added several new functions to support the PostgreSQL v3 protocol introduced in PostgreSQL 7.4


• pg_transaction_status() - in-transaction status of a database connection


• pg_query_params() - execution of parameterized queries


• pg_prepare() - prepare named queries


• pg_execute() - execution of named prepared queries


• pg_send_query_params() - async equivalent of pg_query_params()


• pg_send_prepare() - async equivalent of pg_prepare()


• pg_send_execute() - async equivalent of pg_execute()


• pg_result_error_field() - highly detailed error information, most importantly the SQLSTATE error code


• pg_set_error_verbosity() - set verbosity of errors


• Added optional fifth parameter "count" to preg_replace_callback() and preg_replace() to count the number of replacements made. FR #32275


• Added optional third parameter "charlist" to str_word_count() which contains characters to be considered as word part. FR #31560


• Added interface Serializeable


• Added pg_field_type_oid() PostgreSQL function


• Added zend_declare_property_...() and zend_update_property_...() API functions for bool, double and binary safe strings


• Added possibility to access INI variables from within .ini file


• Added variable $_SERVER['REQUEST_TIME'] containing request start time


• Added optional float parameter to gettimeofday()


• Added apache_reset_timeout() Apache1 function


• Added sqlite_fetch_column_types() 3rd argument for arrays


• Added optional offset parameter to stream_get_contents() and file_get_contents()


• Added optional maxlen parameter to file_get_contents()


• Added SAPI hook to get the current request time


• Added new functions:


• array_diff_key()


• array_diff_ukey()


• array_intersect_key()


• array_intersect_ukey()


• array_product()


• DomDocumentFragment::appendXML()


• fputcsv()


• htmlspecialchars_decode()


• inet_pton()


• inet_ntop()


• mysqli::client_info property


• posix_access()


• posix_mknod()


• SimpleXMLElement::XPathNamespace()


• stream_context_get_default()


• stream_socket_enable_crypto()


• stream_wrapper_unregister()


• stream_wrapper_restore()


• stream_filter_remove()


• time_sleep_until()


• Added DomDocument::$recover property for parsing not well-formed XML Documents


• Added Cursor support for MySQL 5.0.x in mysqli


• Added proxy support to ftp wrapper via http


• Added MDTM support to ftp_url_stat


• Added zlib stream filter support


• Added bz2 stream filter support


• Added max_redirects context option that specifies how many HTTP redirects to follow


• Added support of parameter=>value arrays to xsl_xsltprocessor_set_parameter()