What's new in PHP 8.5

Transcript

1. What's new in PHP 8.5
2. About me · ! Christian Leo-Pernold · "#$%&'()⛰+,- · . @mazedlx@wien.rocks · / @mazedlx.bsky.social · ⭐ github.com/mazedlx · 1 mazedlx.net · 2 instagram.com/mazedlx · 3 linkedin.com/in/mazedlx 2/51
3. Version History and EOL1,2 5.6 2018-12-31 (2.527 days ago) 7.0 2019-01-19 (2.508 days ago) 7.1 2019-12-31 (2.162 days ago) 7.2 2020-11-30 (1.827 days ago) 7.3 2021-12-06 (1.456 days ago) 7.4 2022-11-28 (1.099 days ago) 8.0 2023-11-26 (736 days ago) 8.1 2025-12-31 (in 30 days from now) 8.2 2026-12-31 (in 395 days from now) 8.3 2027-12-31 (in 760 days from now) 8.4 2028-12-31 (in 1.126 days from now) 1,2 https://www.php.net/supported-versions.php and https://www.php.net/eol.php 3/51
4. PHP 8.5 was released on 2025-11-20 will reach EOL on 2029-12-31 4/51
5. New Features 5/51
6. URI Parsing API4 4 https://wiki.php.net/rfc/url_parsing_api 6/51
7. URLs5 were originally defined by Tim Berners-Lee [...], but [...] other specifications have also emerged, out of which RFC 3986 and WHATWG URL are the most notable ones. The former one updates the original RFC 1738 and defines URIs6, while the latter one specifies how browsers should treat URLs.7 — From the RFC 7 https://wiki.php.net/rfc/url_parsing_api 6 Uniform Resource Identifier, e.g. <www.php.net> 5 Uniform Resource Locator, e.g. https://www.php.net 7/51
8. $url = Uri\WhatWg\Url::parse('https://www.php.net'); $url = Uri\Rfc3986\Url::parse('https://www.php.net'); 8/51
9. Use WHATWG for URLs to be rendered in a browser, for everything else use RFC 3986 — Volker 'edorian' Dusch (PHP 8.5 release manager) 9/51
10. $url = new Uri\WhatWg\Url("HTTPS://bob:p%61ss@exämple.com:443" . "/foo?bar=baz#qua"); $url->getScheme(); // https $url->getUsername(); // bob $url->getPassword(); // p%61ss $url->getAsciiHost(); // xn--exmple-cua.com $url->getUnicodeHost(); // exämple.com $url->getPort(); // 443 $url->getPath(); // foo $url->getQuery(); // bar=baz $url->getFragment(); // qua 10/51
11. Pipe Operator9 9 https://wiki.php.net/rfc/pipe-operator-v3 11/51
12. $greeting = 'hello-world!'; $greeting = implode( ' ', array_map( 'ucfirst', explode( '-', $greeting ) ) ); var_dump($greeting); // Hello World! 12/51
13. $greeting = 'hello-world!'; $greeting = explode('-', $greeting); $greeting = array_map(ucfirst(...), $greeting); $greeting = implode(' ', $greeting); var_dump($greeting); // Hello World! 13/51
14. $greeting = 'hello-world!' |> (fn (string $greeting) => explode('-', $greeting)) |> (fn (array $parts) => array_map(ucfirst(...), $parts)) |> (fn (array $parts) => implode(' ', $parts)); var_dump($greeting); // Hello World! 14/51
15. php --ini=diff 15/51
16. $ php --help --ini=diff Show INI entries that differ from the built-in default 16/51
17. $ php --ini=diff Non-default INI settings: error_reporting: (none) -> "30719" html_errors: "1" -> "0" implicit_flush: "0" -> "1" max_execution_time "30" -> "0" mysqli.default_host: (none) -> "" 17/51
18. Attributes on Constants10 10 https://wiki.php.net/rfc/attributes-on-constants 18/51
19. #[\Deprecated] const FOO = 7; echo FOO; // Deprecated: Constant FOO is deprecated in... 19/51
20. Error Backtraces11 11 https://wiki.php.net/rfc/error_backtraces_v2 20/51
21. PHP errors do not provide backtraces, which can make it difficult to ascertain their underlying cause. Enabling backtraces for fatal errors will provide vital information to developers debugging production applications. — Eric Norris (from the RFC) 21/51
22. set_time_limit(1); function recurse() { usleep(100_000); recurse(); // infinite loop } 22/51
23. Fatal error: Maximum execution time of 1 second exceeded in example.php on line 7 23/51
24. Fatal error: Maximum execution time of 1 second exceeded in example.php on line 6 Stack trace: #0 example.php(6): usleep(100000) #1 example.php(7): recurse() #2 example.php(7): recurse() #3 example.php(7): recurse() #4 example.php(7): recurse() #5 example.php(7): recurse() #6 example.php(7): recurse() #7 example.php(7): recurse() #8 example.php(7): recurse() #9 example.php(7): recurse() #10 example.php(10): recurse() #11 {main} 24/51
25. Stack traces are now available when dealing with · timeouts · out of memory errors · class redefinitions 25/51
26. Marking return values as important12 12 https://wiki.php.net/rfc/marking_return_value_as_important 26/51
27. #[\NoDiscard("Must check status code")] function createTransaction(): TransactionResult { // ... } createTransaction(); // Warning: return value should not be ignored. 27/51
28. Persistent cURL share handle improvement13 13 https://wiki.php.net/rfc/curl_share_persistence_improvement 28/51
29. Connections are reused between cURL requests across script runs on the same worker process. 29/51
30. IntlListFormatter 30/51
31. $fmt = new IntlListFormatter('en', IntlListFormatter::TYPE_AND); echo $fmt->format([ 'one', 'two', 'three', ]); // "one, two, and three" 31/51
32. array_first & array_last14 14 https://wiki.php.net/rfc/array_first_last 32/51
33. $array = [ 'Alice', 'Bob', 'Charles', 'Debbie', 'Emily', ]; foreach ($array as $first) { break; } $first = reset($array); $first = array_values($array)[0]; 33/51
34. array_first($array); // 'Alice' array_last($array); // 'Emily', array_first([1 => 'a', 0 => 'b', 3 => 'c', 2 => 'd']); // 'a' array_last([1 => 'a', 0 => 'b', 3 => 'c', 2 => 'd']); // 'd' 34/51
35. Why were these functions missing for all those years? Nobody knows, voting ended 35:0 35/51
36. OPcache is now a non-optional part of PHP15 15 https://wiki.php.net/rfc/make_opcache_required 36/51
37. Since OPcache’s integration into the Open Source PHP project with PHP 5.5, OPcache has become an essential part of PHP, running PHP in production without OPcache is generally considered a mistake and any new features are expected to be compatible with OPcache. — From the RFC 37/51
38. New PHP_BUILD_DATE constant New PHP_BUILD_PROVIDER constant 38/51
39. echo PHP_BUILD_DATE; // Sep 25 2025 10:19:39 echo PHP_BUILD_PROVIDER; // Shivam Mathur 39/51
40. New max_memory_limit INI directive 40/51
41. max_memory_limit=256M memory_limit=128M ini_get('max_memory_limit'); // "256M"; ini_get('memory_limit'); // "128M"; ini_set('memory_limit', '300M'); // Warning: Failed to set memory_limit to 314572800 bytes. // Setting to max_memory_limit instead (currently: 268435456 bytes) in ... 41/51
42. New locale_is_right_to_left function New Locale::isRightToLeft static method 42/51
43. locale_is_right_to_left('en'); // false locale_is_right_to_left(''); // false locale_is_right_to_left('ar'); // true locale_is_right_to_left('ar-US'); // true locale_is_right_to_left('he_IL'); // true locale_is_right_to_left('ar-XY'); // true 43/51
44. Locale::isRightToLeft('en'); // false Locale::isRightToLeft(''); // false Locale::isRightToLeft('ar'); // true Locale::isRightToLeft('ar-US'); // true Locale::isRightToLeft('ar-XY'); // true 44/51
45. Final Property Promotion16 16 https://wiki.php.net/rfc/final_promotion 45/51
46. class ApiRequest { public function __construct( final string $endpoint, final array $payload ) {} } 46/51
47. Deprecations 47/51
48. · All MHASH_* constants deprecated · Non-canonical scalar type casts (boolean| double|integer|binary) deprecated · Returning non-string values from a user output handler is deprecated · Emitting output from custom output buffer handlers is deprecated 48/51
49. Where to go from here? · Read the RFCs https://wiki.php.net/rfc · Read the blog by Brendt https://stitcher.io/ · Also https://php.watch/versions/8.5 · Follow @brendtgd on X <https://x.com/brendtgd> (or don't if you don't like Elon) · Download PHP 8.5 now! 49/51
50. Thank you! Slides can be found at speakerdeck.com/mazedlx 50/51
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