PHP                                                                        NEWS
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
20 Jun 2011, PHP 5.4.0 Alpha 1
- autoconf 2.59+ is now supported (and required) for generating the
  configure script with ./buildconf. Autoconf 2.60+ is desirable
  otherwise the configure help order may be incorrect.  (Rasmus, Chris Jones)

- Removed legacy features:
  . break/continue $var syntax. (Dmitry)
  . Safe mode and all related ini options. (Kalle)
  . register_globals and register_long_arrays ini options. (Kalle)
  . import_request_variables(). (Kalle)
  . allow_call_time_pass_reference. (Pierrick)
  . define_syslog_variables ini option and its associated function. (Kalle)
  . highlight.bg ini option. (Kalle)
  . Session bug compatibility mode (session.bug_compat42 and
    session.bug_compat_warn ini options). (Kalle)
  . session_is_registered(), session_register() and session_unregister()
    functions. (Kalle)
  . y2k_compliance ini option. (Kalle)

- Moved extensions to PECL: (Johannes)
  . ext/sqlite.

- Changed $_SERVER['REQUEST_TIME'] to include microsecond precision. (Ilia)
- Changed default value of "default_charset" php.ini option from ISO-8859-1 to
  UTF-8. (Rasmus)
- Changed array_combine() to return empty array instead of FALSE when both
  parameter arrays are empty. FR #34857. (joel.perras@gmail.com)
- Changed third parameter of preg_match_all() to optional. FR #53238. (Adam)
- Changed silent casting of null/''/false into an Object when adding
  a property into a warning. (Scott)
- <?= is now always available regardless of the short_tags setting (Rasmus)

- General improvements:
  . Added multibyte support by default. Previously php had to be compiled
    with --enable-zend-multibyte. Now it can be enabled or disabled through
    zend.multibyte directive in php.ini. (Dmitry)
  . Removed compile time dependency from ext/mbstring (Dmitry)
  . Added support for Traits. (Stefan)
  . Added closure $this support back. (Stas)
  . Added array dereferencing support. (Felipe)
  . Added indirect method call through array. FR #47160. (Felipe)
  . Added support for object references in recursive serialize() calls.
    FR #36424. (Mike)
  . Added http_response_code() function. FR #52555. (Paul Dragoonis, Kalle)
  . Added header_register_callback() which is invoked immediately
    prior to the sending of headers and after default headers have
    been added. (Scott)
  . Added DTrace support. (David Soria Parra)
  . Improved output layer, see README.NEW-OUTPUT-API for internals. (Mike)
  . Improved unserialize() performance.
    (galaxy dot mipt at gmail dot com, Kalle)
  . Improved unix build system to allow building multiple PHP binary SAPIs and
    one SAPI module the same time. FR #53271, FR #52410. (Jani)
  . Added optional argument to debug_backtrace() and debug_print_backtrace()
    to limit the amount of stack frames returned. (Sebastian, Patrick)
  . Added stream metadata API support and stream_metadata() stream class
    handler. (Stas)

- Improved Zend Engine memory usage: (Dmitry)
  . Replaced zend_function.pass_rest_by_reference by
    ZEND_ACC_PASS_REST_BY_REFERENCE in zend_function.fn_flags.
  . Replaced zend_function.return_reference by ZEND_ACC_RETURN_REFERENCE
    in zend_function.fn_flags.
  . Removed zend_arg_info.required_num_args as it was only needed for internal
    functions. Now the first arg_info for internal functions (which has special
    meaning) is represented by zend_internal_function_info structure.
  . Moved zend_op_array.size, size_var, size_literal, current_brk_cont,
    backpatch_count into CG(context) as they are used only during compilation.
  . Moved zend_op_array.start_op into EG(start_op) as it's used only for
    'interactive' execution of single top-level op-array.
  . Replaced zend_op_array.done_pass_two by ZEND_ACC_DONE_PASS_TWO in
    zend_op_array.fn_flags.
  . op_array.vars array is trimmed (reallocated) during pass_two.
  . Replaced zend_class_entry.constants_updated by ZEND_ACC_CONSTANTS_UPDATED
    in zend_class_entry.ce_flags.
  . Reduced the size of zend_class_entry by sharing the same memory space
    by different information for internal and user classes.
    See zend_class_entry.info union.
  . Reduced size of temp_variable.

- Changed the structure of op_array.opcodes. The constant values are moved from
  opcode operands into a separate literal table. (Dmitry)

- Improved Zend Engine, performance tweaks and optimizations: (Dmitry)
  . Inlined most probable code-paths for arithmetic operations directly into
    executor.
  . Eliminated unnecessary iterations during request startup/shutdown.
  . Changed $GLOBALS into a JIT autoglobal, so it's initialized only if used.
    (this may affect opcode caches!)
  . Improved performance of @ (silence) operator.
  . Simplified string offset reading. $str[1][0] is now a legal construct.
  . Added caches to eliminate repeatable run-time bindings of functions,
    classes, constants, methods and properties.
  . Added concept of interned strings. All strings constants known at compile
    time are allocated in a single copy and never changed.
  . Added an optimization which saves memory and emalloc/efree calls for empty
    HashTables. (Stas, Dmitry)
  . ZEND_RECV now always has IS_CV as its result.
  . ZEND_CATCH now has to be used only with constant class names.
  . ZEND_FETCH_DIM_? may fetch array and dimension operands in different order.
  . Simplified ZEND_FETCH_*_R operations. They can't be used with the
    EXT_TYPE_UNUSED flag any more. This is a very rare and useless case.
    ZEND_FREE might be required after them instead.
  . Split ZEND_RETURN into two new instructions ZEND_RETURN and
    ZEND_RETURN_BY_REF.
  . Optimized access to global constants using values with pre-calculated
    hash_values from the literals table.
  . Optimized access to static properties using executor specialization.
    A constant class name may be used as a direct operand of ZEND_FETCH_*
    instruction without previous ZEND_FETCH_CLASS.
  . zend_stack and zend_ptr_stack allocation is delayed until actual usage.

- Improved CLI SAPI: (Johannes)
  . Added command line option --rz <name> which shows information of the
    named Zend extension.
  . Interactive readline shell improvements:
    . Added "cli.pager" php.ini setting to set a pager for output.
    . Added "cli.prompt" php.ini setting to configure the shell prompt.
    . Added shortcut #inisetting=value to change ini settings at run-time.
    . Changed shell not to terminate on fatal errors.
    . Interactive shell works with shared readline extension. FR #53878.

- Improved FastCGI SAPI: (Dmitry)
  . Added apache compatible functions: apache_child_terminate(),
    getallheaders(), apache_request_headers() and apache_response_headers()
  . Improved performance of FastCGI request parsing.

- Improved core functions:
  . number_format() no longer truncates multibyte decimal points and thousand
    separators to the first byte. FR #53457. (Adam)
  . Added hex2bin() function. (Scott)

- Improved CURL extension:
  . Added support for CURLOPT_MAX_RECV_SPEED_LARGE and
    CURLOPT_MAX_SEND_SPEED_LARGE. FR #51815. (Pierrick)

- Improved Date extension:
  . Added the + modifier to parseFromFormat to allow trailing text in the
    string to parse without throwing an error. (Stas, Derick)

- Improved DBA extension:
  . Added Tokyo Cabinet abstract DB support. (Michael Maclean)
  . Added Berkeley DB 5 support. (Johannes, Chris Jones)

- Improved filesystem functions:
  . scandir() now accepts SCANDIR_SORT_NONE as a possible sorting_order value.
    FR #53407. (Adam)

- Improved HASH extension:
  . Added Jenkins's one-at-a-time hash support. (Martin Jansen)
  . Added FNV-1 hash support. (Michael Maclean)
  . Made Adler32 algorithm faster. FR #53213. (zavasek at yandex dot ru)

- Improved intl extension:
  . Added Spoofchecker, allows checking for visibly confusable characters and
    other security issues. (Scott)

- Improved JSON extension:
  . Added JsonSerializable interface. (Sara)
  . Added JSON_BIGINT_AS_STRING, extended json_decode() sig with $options.
    (Sara)
  . Added support for JSON_NUMERIC_CHECK option in json_encode() that converts
    numeric strings to integers. (Ilia)
  . Added new json_encode() option JSON_PRETTY_PRINT. FR #44331. (Adam)
  . Added new json_encode() option JSON_UNESCAPED_SLASHES. FR #49366. (Adam)

- Improved LDAP extension:
  . Added paged results support. FR #42060. (ando@OpenLDAP.org,
    iarenuno@eteo.mondragon.edu, jeanseb@au-fil-du.net, remy.saissy@gmail.com)

- Improved MySQL extensions:
  . MySQL: Deprecated mysql_list_dbs(). FR #50667. (Andrey)
  . mysqlnd: Added named pipes support. FR #48082. (Andrey)
  . MySQLi: Added iterator support in MySQLi. mysqli_result implements
    Traversable. (Andrey, Johannes)
  . PDO_mysql: Removed support for linking with MySQL client libraries older
    than 4.1. (Johannes)

- Improved OpenSSL extension:
  . Added AES support. FR #48632. (yonas dot y at gmail dot com, Pierre)
  . Added a "no_ticket" SSL context option to disable the SessionTicket TLS
    extension. FR #53447. (Adam)
  . Added no padding option to openssl_encrypt()/openssl_decrypt(). (Scott)

- Improved PDO DB-LIB: (Stanley)
  . Added nextRowset support.
  . Fixed bug #50755 (PDO DBLIB Fails with OOM).

- Improved PostgreSQL extension:
  . Added support for "extra" parameter for PGNotify().
    (r dot i dot k at free dot fr, Ilia)

- Improved Reflection extension: (Johannes)
  . Added ReflectionExtension::isTemporary() and
    ReflectionExtension::isPersistent() methods.
  . Added ReflectionZendExtension class.
  . Added ReflectionClass::isCloneable(). (Felipe)

- Improved Session extension:
  . Added support for storing upload progress feedback in session data. (Arnaud)
  . Changed session.entropy_file to default to /dev/urandom or /dev/arandom if
    either is present at compile time. (Rasmus)

- Improved SPL extension:
  . Added RegexIterator::getRegex() method. (Joshua Thijssen)
  . Added SplObjectStorage::getHash() hook. (Etienne)
  . Added CallbackFilterIterator and RecursiveCallbackFilterIterator. (Arnaud)

- Improved ZLIB extension:
  . Re-implemented non-file related functionality. (Mike)

- Improved SNMP extension (Boris Lytochkin):
  . Added OO API. FR #53594 (php-snmp rewrite).
  . Sanitized return values of existing functions. Now it returns FALSE on
    failure.
  . Allow ~infinite OIDs in GET/GETNEXT/SET queries. Autochunk them to max_oids
    upon request.
  . Introducing unit tests for extension with ~full coverage.
  . Fixed bugs
    . #44193 (snmp v3 noAuthNoPriv doesn't work)
    . #45893 (Snmp buffer limited to 2048 char)
    . #46065 (snmp_set_quick_print() persists between requests)
    . #51336 (snmprealwalk (snmp v1) does not handle end of OID tree correctly)
    . #53862 (snmp_set_oid_output_format does not allow returning to default)

## UNSORTED ##

- Fixed PDO objects binary incompatibility. (Dmitry)
- Fixed bug #52211 (iconv() returns part of string on error). (Felipe)