PHP 5.5 Updated, Version 5.3 On Its Way Out

PHP is the weapon of choice for many Web developers. It’s a good thing then that the team behind it has been very diligent with its releases. In fact, they have recently released an update to address some bugs that have popped up in the latest version.

If you recall, the PHP Group in late June released PHP 5.5. This latest version included a number of additions and enhancements. For a refresher, here’s all the new stuff that was added:

Added generators and coroutines.

Added the finally keyword.

Added a simplified password hashing API.

Added support for constant array/string dereferencing.

Added scalar class name resolution via ::class.

Added support for using empty() on the result of function calls and other expressions.

Added support for non-scalar Iterator keys in foreach.

Added support for list() constructs in foreach statements.

Added the Zend OPcache extension for opcode caching.

The GD library has been upgraded to version 2.1 adding new functions and improving existing functionality.

A lot more improvements and fixes.

Since then, the PHP Group has been work at work on updating all three major versions of PHP – version 5.3, 5.4 and the latest 5.5 release. Last week, the team released PHP 5.5.1 – a small update that addressed about 20 bugs. One in particular was a bug that was affecting security in the XML sparser.

They aren’t strictly focusing on version 5.5, however, as the PHP Group also released PHP 5.4.17 in early July. The update fixed about 20 bugs.

As for PHP 5.3, the team released version 5.3.27 this month as well. They say, however, that it will be the last regular release in the PHP 5.3 series. There will only be security fixes from here on out so Web developers are encouraged to upgrade to version 5.4 or 5.5 immediately.

If you want to grab any of the above updates, you can access all three at the PHP download page. The Windows binaries are also available there.