PHP 7

✔ engine improvements

• 100%+ performance gain on most real-world applications
• Lower memory usage
• Native thread local storage

✔ Abstract Syntax Tree

✔ Return Types

function get_config(): array {
    return 42;
}
get_config();

// Catchable fatal error: Return value of get_config() must
//  be of the type array, integer returned in %s on line %d

✔ 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

✔ Exceptions on Fatals

function call_method($obj) {
    $obj->method();
}

call_method(null);
// Fatal error: Call to a member function method() on a non-object

try {
    call_method(null);
} catch (EngineException $e) {
    echo "Exception: {$e->getMessage()}\n";
}
// Exception: Call to a member function method() on a non-object

✔ Removal of many deprecated features
     (Your PHP4 code will break!)

- ext/ereg (use ext/pcre instead)
- ext/mysql (use ext/mysqli or ext/pdo_mysql instead)
- Assignment of new by reference
- Scoped calls of non-static methods from incompatible $this context

- dl() in php-fpm
- set_magic_quotes_runtime() and magic_quotes_runtime()
- set_socket_blocking() (use stream_set_blocking() instead)
- mcrypt_generic_end() (use mcrypt_generic_deinit() instead)
- mcrypt_ecb, mcrypt_cbc, mcrypt_cfb and mcrypt_ofb 
  (use mcrypt_encrypt() and mcrypt_decrypt() instead)
- datefmt_set_timezone_id() and IntlDateFormatter::setTimeZoneID() 
  (use datefmt_set_timezone() or IntlDateFormatter::setTimeZone() instead)

- xsl.security_prefs (use XsltProcessor::setSecurityPrefs() instead)
- iconv.input_encoding, iconv.output_encoding, iconv.internal_encoding,
  mbstring.http_input, mbstring.http_output and mbstring.internal_encoding
  (use php.input_encoding, php.internal_encoding and php.output_encoding instead)

- $is_dst parameter of the mktime() and gmmktime() functions
- # style comments in ini files (use ; style comments instead)
- String category names in setlocale() (use LC_* constants instead)
- Unsafe curl file uploads (use CurlFile instead)
- preg_replace() eval modifier (use preg_replace_callback() instead)
- PDO::PGSQL_ATTR_DISABLE_NATIVE_PREPARED_STATEMENT driver option 
  (use PDO::ATTR_EMULATE_PREPARES instead)
- CN_match and SNI_server_name stream context option (use peer_name instead)

✔ 64-bit integer support on Windows

✔ Cleanup edge-case integer overflow/underflow

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

$this->getAction()->invoke();
// PHP 5.5: Fatal error: Call to a member function invoke() on a non-object in file on line N
// PHP 5.6: Fatal error: Call to a member function invoke() on null in file on line N
// PHP 7.0: Catchable fatal error: Call to a member function invoke() on null in file on line N

✔ 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

✔ Unicode Codepoint Escape Syntax

echo "\u{202E}Right-to-left text";

echo "\u{1F602}";

‮Right-to-left text😂		

✔ ICU IntlChar class added to intl extension

More things will be added

First RC scheduled for June 2015

Time and number of machine instructions for 100 requests against Wordpress-3.6.0 front page

(click on legend items to show/hide data sets)

Test Box Specs

• Gigabyte Z87X-UD3H i7-4771 4 cores @ 3.50GHz w/ 16G of Ram @ 1600MHz
• Hyperthreading enabled for a total of 8 virtual cores
• Toshiba THNSNHH256GBST SSD
• Linux debian 3.2.0-4-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 3.2.65-1+deb7u1 x86_64 GNU/Linux
• MySQL 5.6.22
• nginx-1.2.1 + php-fpm for all tests unless indicated otherwise
• Quiet local 100Mbps network
• siege benchmark tool run from a separate machine

All versions of PHP compiled locally using gcc-4.7.2 -O2

configure flags

./configure --disable-debug       --with-apxs2=/usr/bin/apxs2 \
            --enable-zend-signals --with-gd \
            --without-pear        --with-jpeg-dir=/usr \
            --with-png-dir=/usr   --with-vpx-dir=/usr \
            --with-t1lib=/usr     --with-freetype-dir=/usr \
            --enable-exif         --enable-gd-native-ttf \
            --with-zlib           --with-mysql=/usr \
            --with-gmp            --with-zlib-dir=/usr \
            --with-gettext        --with-kerberos \
            --with-imap-ssl       --with-mcrypt=/usr/local \
            --with-iconv          --enable-sockets \
            --with-openssl        --with-pspell \
            --with-pdo-sqlite     --with-pdo-mysql=mysqlnd \
            --enable-soap         --enable-xmlreader \
            --enable-phar=shared  --with-xsl \
            --enable-ftp          --enable-cgi \
            --with-curl=/usr      --with-tidy \
            --with-xmlrpc         --enable-mbstring \
            --enable-sysvsem      --enable-sysvshm \
            --enable-shmop        --with-readline \
            --enable-pcntl        --enable-fpm \
            --enable-intl         --enable-zip \
            --with-imap           --with-mysqli=mysqlnd \
            --enable-calendar     --prefix=/usr/local \
            --with-mysql-sock=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock \
            --with-config-file-scan-dir=/etc/php7/conf.d \
            --with-config-file-path=/etc/php7

php.ini

[PHP]
zend.multibyte=On
date.timezone="America/Los_Angeles"
display_startup_errors=On
zend.enable_gc=Off
include_path="/usr/local/lib/php"
default_charset="UTF-8"
error_reporting=-1

variables_order=GPCS
sendmail_path=""

max_execution_time=60
memory_limit=512M
post_max_size=1024M
cgi.force_redirect=0
cgi.fix_pathinfo=1

magic_quotes=0
magic_quotes_gpc=0
user_ini.filename=
realpath_cache_size=2M
cgi.check_shebang_line=0

max_input_vars=1000
max_file_uploads=50

zend_extension=opcache.so
opcache.enable=1
opcache.memory_consumption=256
opcache.interned_strings_buffer=8
opcache.max_accelerated_files=10000
opcache.revalidate_freq=60
opcache.fast_shutdown=1
opcache.enable_cli=1

php-fpm.d/www.conf

[www]
user = www-data
group = www-data
listen = /var/run/php-fpm.sock
listen.owner = www-data
listen.group = www-data
listen.mode = 0660

pm = static
pm.max_children = 10
pm.status_path = /status
ping.path = /ping
ping.response = pong

nginx.conf

user www-data;
worker_processes 4;
pid /var/run/nginx.pid;

events {
        worker_connections 768;
}

http {
        sendfile on;
        tcp_nopush on;
        tcp_nodelay on;
        keepalive_timeout 65;
        types_hash_max_size 2048;

        include /etc/nginx/mime.types;
        default_type application/octet-stream;

        access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log;
        error_log /var/log/nginx/error.log;

        gzip on;
        gzip_disable "msie6";

        include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf;
        include /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/*;
}

php.conf

location ~ \.php {
  include                  fastcgi_params;
  fastcgi_keep_conn        on;
  fastcgi_index            index.php;
  fastcgi_split_path_info  ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
  fastcgi_param PATH_INFO  $fastcgi_path_info;
  fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
  fastcgi_intercept_errors on;
  fastcgi_pass             unix:/var/run/php-fpm.sock;
}

hhvm.conf

location ~ \.php$ {
  include           fastcgi_params;
  fastcgi_keep_conn on;
  fastcgi_pass      unix:/var/run/hhvm/server.sock;
  fastcgi_index     index.php;
  fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
}

sites-enabled/wordpress

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name wordpress;
    root /var/www/wordpress;
    access_log /var/log/nginx/wordpress-access.log;
    error_log /var/log/nginx/wordpress-error.log;

    location / {
        index     index.html index.htm index.php;
        autoindex on;
    }

    location ~ /\.  { return 403; }

    include php.conf;
#   include hhvm.conf;
}

hhvm (tags/HHVM-3.5.0-0-ga90f4733cfa0d8fefdafc7433f758f78cdc75424) from
"deb http://dl.hhvm.com/debian wheezy main"

server.ini

pid = /var/run/hhvm/pid
hhvm.server.file_socket = /var/run/hhvm/server.sock
hhvm.server.type = fastcgi
hhvm.server.default_document = index.php
hhvm.log.use_log_file = true
hhvm.log.file = /var/log/hhvm/error.log
hhvm.repo.central.path = /var/run/hhvm/hhvm.hhbc

php.ini

session.save_handler = files
session.save_path = /var/lib/php5
session.gc_maxlifetime = 1440

hhvm.log.level = Warning
hhvm.log.always_log_unhandled_exceptions = true
hhvm.log.runtime_error_reporting_level = 8191
hhvm.mysql.typed_results = false

Had to fix one line of code in the Avalon database library:

diff --git a/database/model.php b/database/model.php
index 6c5f7da..c93e726 100644
--- a/database/model.php
+++ b/database/model.php
@@ -397,7 +397,7 @@ public function __get($var) {
           $belongs_to['column'] = $var . '_id';
       }
       $model = $belongs_to['model'];
-      return $this->$var = $model::find($belongs_to['foreign_key'], $this->$belongs_to['column']);
+      return $this->$var = $model::find($belongs_to['foreign_key'], $this->{$belongs_to['column']});
   } else {
       $val = $this->$var;

Help us test!

It is really easy!

Install Vagrant and Virtualbox

Then:

$ git clone https://github.com/rlerdorf/php7dev.git

$ cd php7dev

$ vagrant up
... (takes a bit - it is downloading 1.5G)

$ vagrant ssh

It will NAT, DHCP and also has a fixed address of 192.168.7.7

http://192.168.7.7/ will show you the PHP 7 phpinfo() page

Now you have a working Rasmus-approved dev box on your network

Switching PHP versions is trivial

vagrant@php7dev:~$ sudo newphp 56
Activating PHP 5.6.6-dev and restarting php-fpm

vagrant@php7dev:~$ sudo newphp 7 debug
Activating PHP 7.0.0-dev and restarting php-fpm

20 pre-compiled versions

/usr/local/php53            /usr/local/php54-zts        /usr/local/php56-debug-zts
/usr/local/php53-debug      /usr/local/php55            /usr/local/php56-zts
/usr/local/php53-debug-zts  /usr/local/php55-debug      /usr/local/php70
/usr/local/php53-zts        /usr/local/php55-debug-zts  /usr/local/php70-debug
/usr/local/php54            /usr/local/php55-zts        /usr/local/php70-debug-zts
/usr/local/php54-debug      /usr/local/php56            /usr/local/php70-zts
/usr/local/php54-debug-zts  /usr/local/php56-debug

Build any version

$ cd php-src
$ git checkout master
$ git pull -r
$ make distclean
$ ./buildconf -f
$ ./cn
$ make
$ sudo make install

or

$ cd php-src
$ git checkout PHP-5.6
$ git pull -r
$ make distclean
$ ./buildconf -f
$ ./cn56
$ make
$ sudo make install

Report Bugs

Useful bug reports, please!