A Glance at Brand Spanking PHP 7

PHP 7 is a brand-new version release, arriving a decade after PHP 5. Expected release is before the end of the year. There are a lot of features that will give a new edge to the programming world.

This year, on Oct 15, 2015, PHP7 RC5 is released giving a good news to the PHP Developers. PHP 7 is under development phase, so it’s advisable not to use it for development environment till the final version is out in November. However, it is open to play with it and do our own R&D with it.

• • It’s PHP 7, not 6 :
    The current well-built release uses PHP 5.6 as the version number. The development team decided to omit the version name as PHP 6 for the next grand release to avoid confusion with experimental projects. version 6 was started as test project with a specific set of features. However, PHP 6 didn’t reach the production phase due to some conflict.
  • The Zend Engine :
    The Zend engine has been a core part of PHP from 1999 when it was released with the then new PHP 4. Zend Framework, an open-source platform is written in C, which interprets the PHP language. The ongoing PHP 5 series use Zend Engine 2 that intensified the functionality of the initial engine and gives an extensible object model and a notable performance enhancement to the language. PHP 7 will come with a new and more powerful version of the engine version named PHPNG.
  • Twice The Speed :
    The New PHPNG engine has the easily distinguishable advantage, the significant performance enhancement. The developers team of PHPNG re-innovate the Zend Engine, remarkably enhanced memory consumption and brought just-in-time compilation (JIT) that allows compilation at the run time instead of prior to execution. This results into extraordinary performance presented by the Zend Performance Team in below diagram. With the help of PHP 7 not only, the code will be executed quicker but you will need fewer servers to serve the same number of users.
     
    

  • Facilitates Error Handling :
    When it comes to handling fatal errors, it’s never been an easy business for PHP Developers. The latest Engine Exceptions will let you replace this kind of flaws (errors) with exceptions. If the exception is not detected, PHP will continue to deliver the same fatal errors like the current 5.X series.
     

    The \EngineException objects don’t stretch the \Exception Base Class. This assures backward compatibility and results in two distinct kinds of exceptions in error handling: traditional as well as engine exceptions.
     
    To facilitate programmers to catch both errors, PHP 7 introduces a different shared Parent Class named as \BaseException.

  • 64-bit support :
    PHP is a pre-eminent member of the LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) stack it means Linux is the native environment – however, it’s also feasible to run it on a Windows OS. The PHP 5.X series don’t yet provide 64-bit entity or large files’ support, so till now it has been considered experimental.
     

    The PHP 7 will amend this as it introduces steady 64-bit support that means both of the native 64-bit integers and the large file will be supported, allowing users to confidently run the program on their 64-bit OS.

  • Two new operators: Spaceship Operator and Null Coalescing :
    The Spaceship operator is officially named as Combined Comparison Operator. Spaceship Operator is denoted by <=> (if you imagine it right, it looks like a simplified spaceship).
     

    The operator returns 0 if both operands are same, 1 when the left is greater, and -1, in case the right is greater. It’s also known as a three-way comparison operator, and it is already there in other famous programming languages like Ruby and Perl.
     

    The Null Coalescing operator is indicated with two question marks ( ?? ). Users can use it when a user want to check if something exists and delivers a default value, in case it doesn’t. The coalesce delivers the outcome of its first operand if it exists and is not null, and will give the second operand in cases it doesn’t.

  • Enables Accurate Type Declarations :
    Another marvelous feature of PHP 7 enables developers to intensify the quality of code with the help of return type declarations. The code below states that MyFunction() returns a value which will be converted to bool automatically.
     
    
     

    New PHP has introduced four new types of declarations for scalar types– integer, float, string, and Boolean. By default, in a scalar type, if we pass a float value to an integer parameter, it will re-correct it to an integer without outputting any warning or error.

  • Anonymous Classes :
    PHP 7 enables a user to use anonymous classes (a class without a name), already a well-built practice in other object-oriented languages like Java and C#. The object it instantiates has equal functionality as an object of a named class.
     
    It has the same syntax to which developers are used to in traditional PHP classes, the only thing missing is a name. A well used anonymous classes not only speed up the code but the execution time as well. Anonymous classes are outstanding when a class is used only once during the execution and in cases when it doesn’t require to be documented.
  • Facilitates Imports From the Same Namespace :
    This Group Use Declarations feature will be a godsend to those who want to import multiple classes from the same namespace. The new syntax will cut down verbosity and makes your code easier and tidier on the eyes and saves a lot of typing time.

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