PHP 5.6.0 - Changes in this PHP version

Frankly speaking, it almost certainly goes without much of saying, that in order to make a particular business website interactive, compelling, safe, and secure, PHP is the best bet. This is one language that comes up with a string of specific characteristics, which makes the website in question, more effective, as well as efficient that makes the difference in attracting new customers and retaining them for a considerable period of time. In fact, here is one language that is the best, the most stable, user-friendly, and cost effective when we speak about creating as well as designing a website.

PHP, the server-side language that is used for scripting is particularly designed to facilitate web development can also be termed as a general language for programming. Over the years, the language has seen a series of changes as well as improvements. One of the latest in the series is PHP 5.6.0 that has come up with a string of value added features along with a number of backward incompatible changes as well as improvements from the earlier versions.

This new PHP version comes up with Constant Scalar expressions along with a series of variadic functions as well as syntaxes for unpacking argument. This version also features Exponentiation operator, which is nothing but a conventional arithmetic operator that returns various float values if the pair of operarands turns out to be integers, or in any case the strings that are transformed into integers and the numbers are divisible evenly. However, in this case it will return an integer value.

Moreover, the modulus operands are transformed into integers before the processing starts, mainly through a process of getting rid of the decimal part. The new version also comes up with the constants and functional imports with the use of proper keywords. Then there is phpdbg, which will act as a customary interactive as well as integrated debugger Speech Application Programming Interface or SAPI.

This interactive PHP debugger on the other hand is implemented as a typical SAPI module. phpdbg is capable of having a comprehensive control over the domain or environment without having any effect whatsoever, on the performance or functionality of the codes. In fact, phpdbg is an extremely lightweight, user-friendly, and a powerful platform for debugging, which is predominantly stepthrough in approach.

In this new version php://input has become reusable, while $HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA has now deprecated. php://input basically is a typical read-only stream that is designated to allow the users go through the raw data from a request body. When it comes to POST requests, php://input should be preferably used rather than $HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA. This is mainly because it is not dependant on the special directives of php.ini. PHP 5.6.0 also comes up with GMP objects that are equipped to support operator loading mechanism, which in turn helps files that occupy more than 2 GB space to be accepted. Apart from all these, the new PHP edition also has incorporated certain changes that have affected compatibility in a great way.

In the new version, the array keys do not need to be overwritten, when it comes to defining arrays as property of a definite class, through literally any array. In this version, the json_decode() is much stricter when it comes to parsing of JSON syntax. Also, stream wrappers now are capable of verifying by default, the peer certificates, and the host names while using SSL/TLS. Moreover, the GMP resources in the new version can be classified as objects and the Mcrypt functions in the new edition need valid keys as well as IVs.

So these are the changes that the new avatar of PHP comes up with and which provides the added benefit to the users, apart from the customary benefits that the language offers to the programmers and coders. You can get in touch with a php development company who can help you develop web apps that are stable, scalable and secure.

We provide php website development services. If you would like to hire php developerfor your web development needs, please contact Mindfire Solutions.

Can you avoid LAMP development and expect growth in business?

The solution stack of software programs called LAMP, offers a wonderful platform so that web based applications can be easily developed as well as implemented. The first letters of components that are included in this formulate the name. The components are Linux which is an operating system, Apache which is a HTTP server, MySql which is the database and PHP, Perl or Python which are the scripting languages. This platform is open source; it can be used for both complex as well as simple work.

Components

Linux- This operating system is open source, ensuring efficient running of all components. Its cross-platform compatibility is a hugely popular feature.

Apache- This web server helps in connecting web applications with the users. Apache servers are responsible for the application’s stability. The conjunction between Apache and PHP result in the creation of dynamic pages, resulting in applications that are highly interactive.

MySQL- Data storing is mandatory for applications and this function is performed by the relational database management system which is highly capable and used generally to run enterprise level sites.

PHP- It acts as the glue holding every component together in the system. All dynamic content can be written in the language so that the data that is stored in the database can be accessed.

These days, most developers as well as businesses are finding it harder to avoid using LAMP with every passing day. In fact when using the platform, it is not a strict requirement for you to install all LAMP elements; you can select any one of the P elements. The platform has so many benefits that avoiding it is not really much of an option anymore. At some point or the other any of the above elements has to be used. In fact business growth may be hampered up to a certain level by avoiding LAMP development. Here is a list of benefits to show how.

Customization- The open source nature of LAMP components help in building up of a large assortment of extra modules as well as components which supply additional functionality. So you can easily customize functionality along with components that suit your requirements.

Flexibility- LAMP stack give you a bundle of unlimited options both in terms of licensing restrictions as well as technicalities. You get full flexibility so that applications can be built as well as deployed in the most suitable methods, regardless of the technology supplier currently being used.

Ease of deployment- There is no need for compiling of applications or dealing with licensing issues which make deployment really easy, just like copying some application to some new host. LAMP-based environments are provided by major hosting services as standards so that a Linux distribution may be deployed like Debian or Fedora.

Ease of development- Powerful applications can be written by virtue of the technology in relatively fewer code lines. The simplicity and straightforwardness of the code makes sure that modification or extension of the application can be done even by nonprogrammers.

Community along with support- During the deployment and development of such applications, you can take the support and help of many experienced people which makes the job a lot easier for any developer- even if he or she is new to it.

Security- The software has been developed by many people and a huge range of community groups as well as users have been using it. This has resulted in the high stability and security of the technology. Normally problems can be fixed really quickly and there is no need to go for expensive support contracts.

Despite several brand new platforms such as ASP.NET, J2EE, Ruby on Rails, etc on the market, the popularity of LAMP has not lost its sheen. The low barrier entrance along with low cost and several benefits mentioned above have contributed to its immense status, making it excellent choice for applications especially for enterprises. You can get in touch with a php application development company India who can help you develop web apps that are stable, scalable and secure.

We provide php web development services. If you would like to hire php developers for your web development needs, please contact Mindfire Solutions.

Why PHP 6 for Enterprise Level Web Development?

The development as well as evolution of languages is but very natural and PHP 6 is the representation of the language's development as well as growth. PHP 4 or PHP 5 had nothing fundamentally wrong but with PHP 6 some issues that were plaguing the language have been sorted, making the language a lot more user-friendly. With respect to many aspects this version has been like cleanup release. The improved language now features a robustness and ease of use that draws the programmers to it, making it ideal for web development at the enterprise level. Some of the features that make it so functional are given below:

Unicode support- While creating websites, character encoding is something that we hardly think about. The only decision that has to be taken is the way to tell user agent about the encoding used and even this is quite simple enough to do. But while building applications, character encoding becomes a problem and here the Unicode support helps a lot. This enables the language to encode and decode automatically the output and input of script which ensures that both user agent along with database receives the encoding needed but without any additional functions for encoding conversion.

Cleaning up the act- In this version a lot of bugs as well as errors have been taken care of which had previously resulted in problems like security holes and slow scripts. Functions like safe_mode, register_globals and magic_quotes have been take care of. In PHP 6, these features have disappeared; many programmers have breathed a sigh of relief with this. Super globals had some long versions such as $HTTP_COOKIE_VARS and register_long_arrays which have disappeared. The mode dealing with PHP 5 classes' backwards compatibility zend.ze1_compatibility_mode has been taken care of as well.

OO functionality- OO model has been improved a lot which can be said to be this version's biggest improvement. The previous version had improved tremendously and this version just carries this improvement further forward with the addition of namespaces. Those familiar with C++ or XML namespaces have ideas regarding the working of namespaces. These actually provide a method to avoid name collisions among classes and functions but without the use of prefixes for the naming. Objects, variables or functions are grouped under a specific name by this so that class names can be used by developers without any problems despite the fact that the particular name may be used by somebody else multiple times.

Alternative PHP Cache- An application's performance can be improved immensely through caching which speaks for the huge demand for excellent opcode cache in PHP default distribution. With demand there are people to cater to it, resulting in APC or Alternative PHP Cache. This was available already sometime back but this extension has now been included in the core for default caching framework.

Further miscellaneous changes to extensions- Basically PHP can be said to be an aggregation of extensions and whatever form we have; in fact, it consists of all of that put together. These extensions however, change and with that the collection does as well. PHP 6 will follow in the footsteps of PHP 5.1, boasting of a great combination of XML Writer extension for writing of XML files and XML Reader enabled in its core distribution. This will allow people to work easily with XML files.

Dismissal of the library of ereg regular expressions is another change carried on in core distribution. Instead this has been made an extension. The previous functionality of ereg lied in being PCRE's competitor but due to some problems it has been removed from core, making it an extension instead.

Some other new changes have been introduced to the language. Basically huge feature updates have not been followed through but majorly a lot of glitches have been eradicated which has made this language an easy tool to work with for most application as well as website developers. In fact, websites of some of the industry giants are run on PHP, making it all the more an attractive platform for development. You can hire developers from top php application development companies in India who can help you build projects within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide php web development services. If you would like to discuss with a certified php developer from our team, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.