New features
New object type
A new type, object, has been introduced that can be used for
(contravariant) parameter typing and (covariant) return typing of any
objects.
Extension loading by name
Shared extensions no longer require their file extension
(.so
for Unix or .dll
for Windows) to
be specified. This is enabled in the php.ini file, as well as in the
dl() function.
Abstract method overriding
Abstract methods can now be overridden when an abstract class extends
another abstract class.
Sodium is now a core extension
The modern Sodium cryptography library has now become a core extension in PHP.
For a complete function reference, see the Sodium
chapter.
Password hashing with Argon2
Argon2 has been added to the password hashing API,
where the following constants have been exposed:
-
PASSWORD_ARGON2I
-
PASSWORD_ARGON2_DEFAULT_MEMORY_COST
-
PASSWORD_ARGON2_DEFAULT_TIME_COST
-
PASSWORD_ARGON2_DEFAULT_THREADS
Extended string types for PDO
PDO's string type has been extended to support the national character type
when emulating prepares. This has been done with the following constants:
-
PDO::PARAM_STR_NATL
-
PDO::PARAM_STR_CHAR
-
PDO::ATTR_DEFAULT_STR_PARAM
These constants are utilised by bitwise OR
'ing them with
PDO::PARAM_STR
:
Additional emulated prepares debugging information for PDO
The PDOStatement::debugDumpParams() method has been
updated to include the SQL being sent to the DB, where the full, raw query
(including the replaced placeholders with their bounded values) will be
shown. This has been added to aid with debugging emulated prepares (and so
it will only be available when emulated prepares are turned on).
Support for extended operations in LDAP
Support for EXOP has been added to the LDAP extension. This has been done by
exposing the following functions and constants:
Address Information additions to the Sockets extension
The sockets extension now has the ability to lookup address information, as
well as connect to it, bind to it, and explain it. The following four
functions have been added for this:
Parameter type widening
Parameter types from overridden methods and from interface implementations
may now be omitted. This is still in compliance with LSP, since parameters
types are contravariant.
Allow a trailing comma for grouped namespaces
A trailing comma can now be added to the group-use syntax introduced in
PHP 7.0.
The pack() and unpack() functions now
support float and double in both little and big endian.
Enhancements to the EXIF extension
The EXIF extension has been updated to support a much larger range of formats. This
means that their format specific tags are now properly translated when parsing images
with the exif_read_data() function. The following new formats are
now supported:
-
Samsung
-
DJI
-
Panasonic
-
Sony
-
Pentax
-
Minolta
-
Sigma/Foveon
-
AGFA
-
Kyocera
-
Ricoh
-
Epson
The EXIF functions exif_read_data() and exif_thumbnail()
now support passing streams as their first argument.
New features in PCRE
-
The
J
modifier for setting PCRE_DUPNAMES has been added.
SQLite3 allows writing BLOBs
SQLite3::openBlob() now allows to open BLOB fields in
write mode; formerly only read mode was supported.
Enhancements to the ZIP extension
Read and write support for encrypted archives has been added (requires libzip 1.2.0).
The ZipArchive class now implements the Countable
interface.
The zip://
stream now accepts a 'password'
context option.