Other Changes

Changes in SAPI Modules

Apache2Handler

The PHP module has been renamed from php7_module to php_module.

Changed Functions

Reflection

ReflectionClass::getConstants() and ReflectionClass::getReflectionConstants() results can be now filtered via a new parameter filter. Three new constants were added to be used with it:

  • ReflectionClassConstant::IS_PUBLIC
  • ReflectionClassConstant::IS_PROTECTED
  • ReflectionClassConstant::IS_PRIVATE

Standard

The math functions abs(), ceil(), floor() and round() now properly heed the strict_types directive. Previously, they coerced the first argument even in strict type mode.

Zip

Other Changes to Extensions

CURL

  • The CURL extension now requires at least libcurl 7.29.0.

  • The deprecated parameter version of curl_version() has been removed.

Date and Time

DatePeriod now implements IteratorAggregate (instead of Traversable).

DOM

DOMNamedNodeMap and DOMNodeList now implement IteratorAggregate (instead of Traversable).

Intl

IntlBreakIterator and ResourceBundle now implement IteratorAggregate (instead of Traversable).

Enchant

The enchant extension now uses libenchant-2 by default when available. libenchant version 1 is still supported but is deprecated and could be removed in the future.

GD

JSON

The JSON extension cannot be disabled anymore and is always an integral part of any PHP build, similar to the date extension.

MBString

The Unicode data tables have been updated to version 13.0.0.

PDO

PDOStatement now implements IteratorAggregate (instead of Traversable).

LibXML

The minimum required libxml version is now 2.9.0. This means that external entity loading is now guaranteed to be disabled by default, and no extra steps need to be taken to protect against XXE attacks.

MySQLi / PDO MySQL

PGSQL / PDO PGSQL

The PGSQL and PDO PGSQL extensions now require at least libpq 9.1.

Readline

Calling readline_completion_function() before the interactive prompt starts (e.g. in auto_prepend_file) will now override the default interactive prompt completion function. Previously, readline_completion_function() only worked when called after starting the interactive prompt.

SimpleXML

SimpleXMLElement now implements RecursiveIterator and absorbed the functionality of SimpleXMLIterator. SimpleXMLIterator is an empty extension of SimpleXMLElement.

Changes to INI File Handling

  • com.dotnet_version is a new INI directive to choose the version of the .NET framework to use for dotnet objects.

  • zend.exception_string_param_max_len is a new INI directive to set the maximum string length in an argument of a stringified stack strace.

EBCDIC

EBCDIC targets are no longer supported, though it's unlikely that they were still working in the first place.

Performance

  • A Just-In-Time (JIT) compiler has been added to the opcache extension.

  • array_slice() on an array without gaps will no longer scan the whole array to find the start offset. This may significantly reduce the runtime of the function with large offsets and small lengths.

  • strtolower() now uses a SIMD implementation when using the "C" LC_CTYPE locale (which is the default).