Flying Under the Radar

The new features of PHP 7 that you probably haven’t heard about

PHP 7

• Due for release in November 2015

• Major new Features/Enhancements• Speed, particularly working with objects

• Scalar Type Hinting

• Return Type Hinting

• Abstract Syntax Tree

PHP 7 – Spaceship Operator (<=>)

• Officially called the Combined Comparison Operator

• Useful for comparison callbacks, e.g. usort()

$x = $a <=> $b;

Returns -1 if $a < $b

Returns 0 if $a == $b

Returns 1 if $a > $b

PHP 7 – Null Coalescence Operator (??)

• Variant of the Ternary Operator (?:)

• Useful for setting default values (eg. for undefined variables)

// PHP 5

$value = isset($value) ? $value : 'default';

// PHP 7

$value = $value ?? 'default';

PHP 7 – Unicode Codepoint Escape Syntax

• Allows direct injection of Unicode codepoints in text strings

echo "ma\u{00F1}ana"; // outputs mañana

echo "man\u{0303}ana"; // outputs mañana

"n" with combining "~" character (Codepoint U+0303)

echo "\u{1F602}"; // outputs 😂

echo "\u{202E}Reversed text"; // outputs txet desreveR

Using Codepoint U+202E, RIGHT-TO-LEFT OVERRIDE

PHP 7 – Array Constants

• PHP 5.6 allowed constant definitions to contain basic operators

• PHP 7 has added support, allowing constant definitions to include arrays

define('ANIMALS', ['dog', 'cat', 'rabbit', 'aardvark']);

echo ANIMALS[1]; // outputs cat

• Class constants have allowed this since PHP 5.6.0

PHP 7 – Generator Delegation

• Simplifies “nested” Generators

• Simplifies the return of individual elements from any Iterable

// PHP 5.5

foreach(range(1, 5) as $value) {

yield $value

}

// PHP 7

yield from range(1, 5);

PHP 7 – Anonymous Classes

• Allow you to create a dynamic class instance, complete with properties and methods

$instance = new class('Hello World') {

private $data;

public function __construct($data) {

$this->data = $data;

}

public function reverse() {

echo strrev($this->data);

}

};

$instance->reverse(); // outputs dlroW olleH

PHP 7