Topic: PHP5.3.0RC1

[dynmosaic]

PHP 5.3 introduced many new features:

Support for namespaces
Under the hood performance improvements
Late static binding
Lambda functions and closures
Syntax additions: NOWDOC, limited GOTO, ternary short cut "?:" and __callStatic()
Optional garbage collection for cyclic references
Optional mysqlnd PHP native replacement for libmysql
Improved windows support including VC6 and VC9 binaries
More consistent float rounding
Deprecation notices are now handle via E_DEPRECATED (part of E_ALL) instead of the E_STRICT error level
Several enhancements to enable more flexiblity in php.ini (and ini parsing in general)
New bundled extensions: ext/phar, ext/intl, ext/fileinfo, ext/sqlite3, ext/enchant
Countless bug fixes and improvements to existing extensions in particular to: ext/openssl, ext/spl and ext/date

I am afraid that these new features might break my server, so I want to test them before they are officially released.

I have been trying to test php 5.3.0RC1 version with my development server with no luck.

I have tried the VC6 NTS and VC9 NTS version from php.net website.
the VC9 NTS version simply gives me an 500 error. I can go a bit further on VC6 NTS version. However, I can't seem to connect to the database server. I have been using apache 2.2.11 and mod_fcgid from this website, MySQL 5.0.67 from mysql website. The development server is hosted on a WinXP pro machine.

Anyone else have tried this php version yet? If so, could you please share with me your experience?

Thanks

[James Blond]

There have been a lot of trouble within this build for windows. That problems should be fixed in the RC2. Remember it is only a release candidate!

If you wanna know more see http://news.php.net/php.internals/start/43492 and watch for Re: Minor problems with PHP 5.3.0 RC1 on Windows

[Pierre]

[dynmosaic]

Thanks guys for the help.

I have noticed the php.ini issue, there was one line supposed to be commented out but was not. I don't remember which line now.

I have grabbed RC2-Development version. Again, VC6.0 build NTS version works this time.

The database connection issue was due to the fact that my MYSQL password was using the old style. I have converted all the passwords into the right format.

I am mainly using my server to power up some open source CMS systems, predominantely Joomla and Mambo. Joomla 1.5.9 has no problems with php 5.3 RC2-Dev. However, Mamno 4.6.* choked on one of the instances. Mainly the following:

The new PHP seems to be more strict. In one of the cases, I have encountered that the derived class constructor of an abstract class was not auto-generated, like the case for earlier versions. I am not sure this is the good thing or bad thing. After manually put the contructor in, my Mambo sites are up and runnning as well.

Also, there was some date issue, can easily be rectified in php.ini.

Other than that, there are lots of warning messages in terms of deprecated functions, etc. Haven't had chance to sort through them yet.

One of the thing that PHP 5.3 introduced is the native support for MySQL. I need to understand this more clearly. Hope some of you knowledgeable folks can explain to me. Does it mean there is no need for libmysql.dll? Currently I still copied my libmysql.dll. Also, supposedly, the persistence connections will speed things up, not so sure in real practice what difference this would make. One big question is really how do I make sure to use native MySQL call only to take advantage this feature?

I haven't had chance to try the persistent connection out, but it is relatively simple to add "p:" in front of "localhost" to make a persistence connection.

I am going to convert one of my site in the development server into this mode to see what will happen.

Any suggestions on how to do the benchmark on this one?

In the meantime, I welcome some of your comments.

[dynmosaic]

Well, not so easy.

The first I did was to convert mysqlinfo.php from this site into using p:localhost, it turns out the old mysql_xxx function won't work. I have to use mysqli_xxx, well, that was easy, after making a global change of

mysql_ to mysqli_ using regular expression search and replace, we are almost in business, with a few small changes to some of the syntax on mysqli_xxx functions. So I have modified mysqlinfo.php running with the connection to the MySQLi database (Just realized MySQLi is called MySQL Improved..., sorry for my ignorance)

Now, change Mambo from MySQL to MySQLi may not be easy matter. But it seems to me there are MySQLi support built into Joomla 1.5.9, it's probably just a matter of googling to find out the necessary info. Will keep you guys posted.

In the meantime, if any of you have any comments, please let me know.

Thanks.

[Pierre]