PHP 5.5

Performance Improvements

• Nested calls
• Call stack pre-allocated by compiler
• Bundled opcode cache

✔ Generators

function xrange($start, $end) {
    for ($i = $start; $i <= $end; $i ++) {
        yield $i;
    }
}
foreach (xrange(0, 5) as $i) {
    echo $i, "\n";
}

✔ Coroutines

function logger($fileName) {
    $fileHandle = fopen($fileName, 'a');
    while (true) {
        fwrite($fileHandle, yield . "\n");
    }
}

$logger = logger(__DIR__ . '/log');
$logger->send('Foo');
$logger->send('Bar');

For an advanced explanation of coroutines, read this article by Nikita Popov

✔ finally

$db = mysqli_connect();
try {
   call_some_function($db);
} finally {
   mysqli_close($db);
}

✔ list() in foreach

$names = [ ['John','Smith'], ['Fred','Johnson'] ];
foreach($names as list($first,$last)) { 
    echo $first,$last; 
}

✔ Const array/string Dereferencing

echo array(1, 2, 3)[0]; //output 1
echo "foobar"[3]; //output b
echo [1,3,4][2]; //output 4

✔ empty() support for functions/expressions

✔ curl upload functionality rewritten

✔ Simplified password hashing API

// Hash
$hash = password_hash("super secret",PASSWORD_BCRYPT);

// To validate $pwd against the stored hash
if (password_verify($pwd, $hash)) {
    echo 'Password is valid!';
} else {
    echo 'Invalid password.';
}

PHP 5.6

✔ Variadic functions

class MySQL implements DB {
    public function query($query, ...$params) {
        $stmt = $this->pdo->prepare($query);
        $stmt->execute($params);
        return $stmt;
    }
}

$q = 'SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = ?';
$user = $db->query($q, $userID)->fetch();

✔ Argument Unpacking

// A better call_user_func_args
$args1 = [1, 2, 3];
$args2 = [4, 5, 6];
test(...$args1, ...$args2); // [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
test(1, 2, 3, ...$args2);   // [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
test(...$args1, 4, 5, 6);   // Fatal error: Cannot use positional argument after argument unpacking

✔ Constant scalar expressions

class Foo {
    const FOO = 1 + 1;
    const BAR = 1 << 1;
    const GREETING = "HELLO";
    const BAZ = self::GREETING." WORLD!"
}

✔ Add right-associative power operator **

echo 2 ** 3 ** 2; // 512 (not 64)
echo -3 ** 2; // -9 (not 9)
echo 1 - 3 ** 2; // -8
echo ~3 ** 2; // -10 (not 16)

✔ Internal operator overloading for internal features like GMP

echo 2**512;
echo "\n";
$n = gmp_init(2);
echo $n**512;

1.3407807929943E+154
13407807929942597099574024998205846127479365820592393377723561443721764030073546976801874298166903427690031858186486050853753882811946569946433649006084096
		

✔ use function and use const namespace imports

include 'template.inc';
include 'db.inc';
use function template\header, template\footer, db\query;

header('My Page');
query('select * from stuff');
footer();

✔ default_charset ini now applies to internal funcs

✔ SSL Peer verification by default

✔ openssl certificate fingerprints

✔ SAN x509 ext matching when verifying host names

✔ automatic DoS prevention of TLS renegotiation attacks

✔ and many more openssl-related options

✔ Asynchronous PostgreSQL database connections

✔ Non-blocking PostgreSQL queries

✔ New phpdbg SAPI

✔ Support for > 2GB file uploads

✔ The php://input stream is now re-usable

✔ Added hash_equals() for timing attack safe string comparison

✔ Added gost-crypto (CryptoPro S-box) hash algorithm

✔ FPM workers can now change their apparmor profile

✔ OCI8 Improvements

PHP 7

✔ phpng engine improvements

• 10-25% performance gain on most realworld applications
• lower memory usage
• Cleans up some things for a future JIT

✔ Abstract Syntax Tree

✔ 64-bit integer support on Windows

✔ Catchable "call to member function of non-object"

✔ Various cleanups (remove old ASP/script tags and more)

✔ Null Coalesce Operator

$a = NULL;
$b = 1;
$c = 2;

echo $a ?? $b; // 1
echo $c ?? $b; // 2
echo $a ?? $b ?? $c; // 1
echo $a ?? $x ?? $c; // 2

✔ Uniform variable syntax

// support missing combinations of operations
$foo()['bar']()
[$obj1, $obj2][0]->prop
getStr(){0}
 
// support nested ::
$foo['bar']::$baz
$foo::$bar::$baz
$foo->bar()::baz()
 
// support nested ()
foo()()
$foo->bar()()
Foo::bar()()
$foo()()
 
// support operations on arbitrary (...) expressions
(...)['foo']
(...)->foo
(...)->foo()
(...)::$foo
(...)::foo()
(...)()
 
// two more practical examples for the last point
(function() { ... })()
($obj->closure)()
 
// support all operations on dereferencable scalars
// (not very useful)
"string"->toLower()
[$obj, 'method']()
'Foo'::$bar

Still early. More things will likely be added

First RC scheduled for June 2015