Apache :: Upgrade Windows PHP easy way?

sam452 · Joined: 19 Dec 2016 Posts: 23 Location: US, Nashville

Like many here, we have eschewed the IIS framework and the Linux way to update PHP versions.
From what I read here, we download the compiled version that fits our Windows enviroment and Apache and then go through its php.ini.

My question is: How much different is the php.ini from php 7.4 to php 8.1? We have almost a dozen config settings to change and I was wondering if I just drag copy the ini from 7.4 to overwrite the php.ini in 8.1 sould it be asking for trouble? It's such a manual process and prone to error.
Or is there a more automated process that others use that I haven't found yet? thx, sam

CamaroSS · Joined: 24 Jan 2013 Posts: 78 Location: RF, Tver

To test the php.ini compatibility, you can download a portable version of PHP8, copy the config file over and try and run `php -v` and `php -m` to see if they run without errors.

But keep in mind that PHP8 is a huge update with lots of backward incompatibilities so you'd better have your dependencies upgraded and application tests ready before you try to upgrade
https://www.php.net/manual/en/migration80.incompatible.php

It also comes with lots of former notices now promoted to warnings like undefined array index access or undefined property access. In my case I have an app with huge amount of legacy code and these flooded my error log so much that I had to write a global error handler to store them separately.

There is also the tool called Rector that promises automatic refactoring for a new PHP version, but I didn't try that.
https://github.com/rectorphp/rector

Good luck!

James Blond

There is a PowerShell script that can manage the PPH version https://github.com/mlocati/powershell-phpmanager it is like a Linux package manager, but only for PHP.