Let’s start by talking about the new features announced for this version 8 without forgetting that the latter is still in development, so this list may grow as the features are announced. Let’s see what this new version will bring by the end of the year Top 5 Features of PHP 8 for Web Development In short, PHP 8 will bring its share of new features such as the JIT compiler for example, and many others. The development of PHP 8 is ongoing and has accelerated at the moment because its final release is closer and closer, especially since the release for the general public of its alpha 1. The release of this major version means significant changes, new features but also performance improvements.

PHP version 8 will be released on November 26, 2020. This should print out something like the following if JIT has been correctly activated.8 Final Words of Latest Version PHP 8 Introduction to PHP 8 You can look at the 'jit' part of this array to get information about the current status of JIT. You can ensure that it's active you can use the opcache_get_status() function. This is what the file looks like on my system.

To activate the JIT you need to enable the opcache and assign some memory to the opcache.jit_buffer_size setting. This is configured in the file located at /etc/php/8.0/cli/conf.d/10-opcache.ini.

On my test system (Ubuntu 20.04) I already have the the PHP opcache module installed, which was installed with the main PHP8 package. To use the JIT you first need to activate it. This means that server side PHP applications might be more prevalent with a JIT system built into PHP. The idea is that it will be of use in CPU intensive applications and not necessarily when used in web based scenarios. A JIT means that PHP will analyse the code being executed and will be able to make real time decisions over performance improvements on the code as it is being executed. When PHP code is executed it is translated into bytecodes and those bytecodes are used to execute the steps in the program. The idea is that it will further improve PHP performance. It is being introduced to PHP8 as there are probably no more speed improvements that can be made without the use of a JIT. The Just-In-Time (or JIT) complier was born as a result of speed improvements made before the release of PHP7. I've read plenty of articles around the internet about these new features, but I thought I would dive into each one in detail. There's plenty of new features going into PHP8. If you know of any other platforms running supporting PHP8 then post a comment and let me know. This is handy if you area also hosting with these platforms as it will help you test your application in plenty of time before the release. You can also run snippets of PHP8 code on the ExtendsClass site. With Zend OPcache v8.0.0rc1, Copyright (c), by Zend TechnologiesĪside from installing it yourself, you can also run PHP8 right now on the following platforms. Zend Engine v4.0.0-dev, Copyright (c) Zend Technologies sudo apt-cache search php8.0Īssuming you see some output from the last command you can now install PHP8 using this command. You can make sure that the right library is installed by searching for PHP8. This can be installed using the following commands. If you are using Ubuntu then the simplest way to install PHP8 is to use the existing ondrej/php PPA library.

Running PHP8Ī good first step is to look at how to install PHP8 so that you can check it out for yourself. I thought I would go through a few of the main changes to see whats going to be in the next PHP release. This will make it easier to think about how PHP8 will effect your applications and what actions you will need to take to ensure you can upgrade without incident. PHP8 will be released on November 26th 2020 and there is lots being written about the upcoming features in this release has now been released! As this is a major version there will be new features as well as breaking changes so it's important to be aware of what is changing.

Php 8 features