Php5

[falco85]

Hi. Just a quick question. Is there any real reason to upgrade to PHP5. From the looks of it, they just added some abstraction and finesse to the class object and OOP design. That's great if you need it, but most basic applications don't.

I just don't see any new functions I need. Any ideas?

[lokeshm]

falco85

PHP 5 is not only about just New Object Model, it has greatly improved PHP's performance and capabilities over its earlier versions, New Functions under Arrays, InterBase, iconv, Streams, Date and Time related, Strings, etc., have been added. New Directives viz., mail.force_extra_parameters, register_long_arrays, session.hash_function, session.hash_bits_per_character have been added. Databases, Error Reporting are also among latest upgradation feature in PHP5.

E_STRICT with value 2048 is introduced in PHP5 error reporting constant. By default it is disabled, I have provided some useful links below related to PHP5 migration. Hope these give you a glimpse of PHP 5 capability.

What has changed in PHP 5
http://in.php.net/manual/en/migration5.php

Migrating from PHP 4 to PHP 5
http://in.php.net/manual/en/faq.migration5.php

Backward Incompatible Changes
http://in.php.net/manual/en/migration5.incompatible.php

PHP 5 Change Log
http://in.php.net/ChangeLog-5.php

Thanks,
Lokesh M.

[mtajim]

There are lots of new things in php5 but u should not just hurdle to upgrade to php5. But moreover u will have problem in upgrading since i have some scripts which work fine in php4 but does not work in php5 so there are some problems too.

[cbdarts]

There are no significant issues with upgrade to PHP5, but I recommend you first look into your scripts, and make sure they can be upgraded. Certain scripts will work Only with a fixed PHP/MySQL combo (like PHP4.1.1/MySQL4.0.1.5 Only) and stuff like that, so any attempt to run it on a server with a different config usually fails.

I guess its because of a feature that was introduced in a particular version and then removed in the next. But be sure your latest version is compatible (read the ChangeLog) before you upgrade.

Else be prepared to suffer a long re-coding...

Chaitanya