Everything

php

PHP 8.4 Code Comparisons

Explore PHP 8.4

Property Hooks

Property hooks provide support for computed properties that can natively be understood by IDEs and static analysis tools, without needing to write docblock comments that might go out of sync. Furthermore, they allow reliable pre- or post-processing of values, without needing to check whether a matching getter or setter exists in the class.

Before PHP 8.4

class Locale
{
    private string $languageCode;
    private string $countryCode;

    public function __construct(string $languageCode, string $countryCode)
    {
        $this->setLanguageCode($languageCode);
        $this->setCountryCode($countryCode);
    }

    public function getLanguageCode(): string
    {
        return $this->languageCode;
    }

    public function setLanguageCode(string $languageCode): void
    {
        $this->languageCode = $languageCode;
    }

    public function getCountryCode(): string
    {
        return $this->countryCode;
    }

    public function setCountryCode(string $countryCode): void
    {
        $this->countryCode = strtoupper($countryCode);
    }

    public function setCombinedCode(string $combinedCode): void
    {
        [$languageCode, $countryCode] = explode('_', $combinedCode, 2);

        $this->setLanguageCode($languageCode);
        $this->setCountryCode($countryCode);
    }

    public function getCombinedCode(): string
    {
        return \sprintf("%s_%s", $this->languageCode, $this->countryCode);
    }
}

$brazilianPortuguese = new Locale('pt', 'br');
var_dump($brazilianPortuguese->getCountryCode()); // BR
var_dump($brazilianPortuguese->getCombinedCode()); // pt_BR

PHP 8.4 or Later

class Locale
{
    public string $languageCode;

    public string $countryCode
    {
        set (string $countryCode) {
            $this->countryCode = strtoupper($countryCode);
        }
    }

    public string $combinedCode
    {
        get => \sprintf("%s_%s", $this->languageCode, $this->countryCode);
        set (string $value) {
            [$this->languageCode, $this->countryCode] = explode('_', $value, 2);
        }
    }

    public function __construct(string $languageCode, string $countryCode)
    {
        $this->languageCode = $languageCode;
        $this->countryCode = $countryCode;
    }
}

$brazilianPortuguese = new Locale('pt', 'br');
var_dump($brazilianPortuguese->countryCode); // BR
var_dump($brazilianPortuguese->combinedCode); // pt_BR

Asymmetric Visibility

The scope to write to a property may now be controlled independently of the scope to read the property, reducing the need for boilerplate getter methods to expose a property’s value without allowing modification from the outside of a class.

Before PHP 8.4

class User
{
    private string $name;

    public function __construct(string $name)
    {
        $this->name = $name;
    }

    public function getName(): string
    {
        return $this->name;
    }
}

$user = new User('Alice');
echo $user->getName();

PHP 8.4 or Later

class User
{
    public private(set) string $name;

    public function __construct(string $name)
    {
        $this->name = $name;
    }
}

$user = new User('Alice');
echo $user->name;
// $user->name = 'Bob'; // Fatal error: Cannot modify private(set) property User::$name

#[\Depreciated] Attribute

The new `#[\Deprecated]` attribute makes PHP’s existing deprecation mechanism available to user-defined functions, methods, and class constants.

Before PHP 8.4

class PhpVersion
{
    /**
     * @deprecated 8.3 use PhpVersion::getVersion() instead
     */
    public function getPhpVersion(): string
    {
        return $this->getVersion();
    }

    public function getVersion(): string
    {
        return '8.3';
    }
}

$phpVersion = new PhpVersion();
// No indication that the method is deprecated.
echo $phpVersion->getPhpVersion();

PHP 8.4 or Later

class PhpVersion
{
    #[\Deprecated(
        message: "use PhpVersion::getVersion() instead",
        since: "8.4",
    )]
    public function getPhpVersion(): string
    {
        return $this->getVersion();
    }

    public function getVersion(): string
    {
        return '8.4';
    }
}

$phpVersion = new PhpVersion();
// Deprecated: Method PhpVersion::getPhpVersion() is deprecated since 8.4, use PhpVersion::getVersion() instead
echo $phpVersion->getPhpVersion();

New ext-dom features and HTML5 support

New DOM API that includes standards-compliant support for parsing HTML5 documents, fixes several long-standing compliance bugs in the behavior of the DOM functionality, and adds several functions to make working with documents more convenient. The new DOM API is available within the Dom namespace. Documents using the new DOM API can be created using the Dom\HTMLDocument and Dom\XMLDocument classes.

Before PHP 8.4

$dom = new DOMDocument();
$dom->loadHTML(
    <<<'HTML'
        <main>
            <article>PHP 8.4 is a feature-rich release!</article>
            <article class="featured">PHP 8.4 adds new DOM classes that are spec-compliant, keeping the old ones for compatibility.</article>
        </main>
        HTML,
    LIBXML_NOERROR,
);

$xpath = new DOMXPath($dom);
$node = $xpath->query(".//main/article[not(following-sibling::*)]")[0];
$classes = explode(" ", $node->className); // Simplified
var_dump(in_array("featured", $classes)); // bool(true)

PHP 8.4 or Later

$dom = Dom\HTMLDocument::createFromString(
    <<<'HTML'
        <main>
            <article>PHP 8.4 is a feature-rich release!</article>
            <article class="featured">PHP 8.4 adds new DOM classes that are spec-compliant, keeping the old ones for compatibility.</article>
        </main>
        HTML,
    LIBXML_NOERROR,
);

$node = $dom->querySelector('main > article:last-child');
var_dump($node->classList->contains("featured")); // bool(true)

Object API for BCMath

New BcMath\Number object enables object-oriented usage and standard mathematical operators when working with arbitrary precision numbers. These objects are immutable and implement the Stringable interface, so they can be used in string contexts like echo $num.

Before PHP 8.4

$num1 = '0.12345';
$num2 = '2';
$result = bcadd($num1, $num2, 5);

echo $result; // '2.12345'
var_dump(bccomp($num1, $num2) > 0); // false

PHP 8.4 or Later

use BcMath\Number;

$num1 = new Number('0.12345');
$num2 = new Number('2');
$result = $num1 + $num2;

echo $result; // '2.12345'
var_dump($num1 > $num2); // false

New array_*() functions

New functions `array_find()`, `array_find_key()`, `array_any()`, and `array_all()` are available.

Before PHP 8.4

$animal = null;
foreach (['dog', 'cat', 'cow', 'duck', 'goose'] as $value) {
    if (str_starts_with($value, 'c')) {
        $animal = $value;
        break;
    }
}

var_dump($animal); // string(3) "cat"

PHP 8.4 or Later

$animal = array_find(
    ['dog', 'cat', 'cow', 'duck', 'goose'],
    static fn(string $value): bool => str_starts_with($value, 'c'),
);

var_dump($animal); // string(3) "cat"

PDO driver specific subclasses

New subclasses `Pdo\Dblib`, `Pdo\Firebird`, `Pdo\MySql`, `Pdo\Odbc`, `Pdo\Pgsql`, and `Pdo\Sqlite` of PDO are available.

Before PHP 8.4

$connection = new PDO(
    'sqlite:foo.db',
    $username,
    $password,
); // object(PDO)

$connection->sqliteCreateFunction(
    'prepend_php',
    static fn($string) => "PHP {$string}",
);

$connection->query('SELECT prepend_php(version) FROM php');

PHP 8.4 or Later

$connection = PDO::connect(
    'sqlite:foo.db',
    $username,
    $password,
); // object(Pdo\Sqlite)

$connection->createFunction(
    'prepend_php',
    static fn($string) => "PHP {$string}",
); // Does not exist on a mismatching driver.

$connection->query('SELECT prepend_php(version) FROM php');

new MyClass()->method() without parentheses

Properties and methods of a newly instantiated object can now be accessed without wrapping the new expression in parentheses.

PHP 8.4 or Later

class PhpVersion
{
    public function getVersion(): string
    {
        return 'PHP 8.3';
    }
}

var_dump((new PhpVersion())->getVersion());

8.4 or Later

class PhpVersion
{
    public function getVersion(): string
    {
        return 'PHP 8.4';
    }
}

var_dump(new PhpVersion()->getVersion());