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Exploring New Features and Changes in PHP 8.4

OpenSwoole TeamOpenSwoole Team
OpenSwoole Team

PHP 8.4 introduces groundbreaking features that streamline coding processes and enhance performance. From Property Hooks to Asymmetric Property Visibility, this release has a lot to offer developers.

PHP 8.4 featuresPHP 8.4 features

Key Features in PHP 8.4

1. Property Hooks

PHP 8.3 and earlier: Property access and modification required boilerplate code with getters and setters.

class User {
    private string $firstName;
    private string $lastName;

    public function getFullName(): string {
        return "$this->firstName $this->lastName";
    }

    public function setFullName(string $fullName): void {
        [$this->firstName, $this->lastName] = explode(' ', $fullName, 2);
    }
}

PHP 8.4: Property Hooks simplify this process.

class User {
    public string $firstName;
    public string $lastName;

    public string $fullName {
        get => "{$this->firstName} {$this->lastName}"; // Getter
        set => [$this->firstName, $this->lastName] = explode(' ', $value, 2); // Setter
    }
}

$user = new User();
$user->fullName = 'Open Swoole';
echo $user->fullName; // Outputs: Open Swoole

2. Asymmetric Property Visibility

PHP 8.3 and earlier: Visibility for properties was uniform for both read and write operations.

class Config {
    private string $version = '1.0.0';

    public function getVersion(): string {
        return $this->version;
    }

    public function setVersion(string $version): void {
        $this->version = $version;
    }
}

PHP 8.4: You can now specify different visibility levels for reading and writing properties.

class Config {
    public private(set) string $version = '1.0.0';

    public function updateVersion(string $newVersion): void {
        $this->version = $newVersion;
    }
}

$config = new Config();
echo $config->version; // Outputs: 1.0.0
$config->updateVersion('1.1.0');
echo $config->version; // Outputs: 1.1.0

3. New Array Functions

PHP 8.3 and earlier: Finding or validating array elements required custom loops or array functions.

$numbers = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5];
$firstEven = null;
foreach ($numbers as $n) {
    if ($n % 2 === 0) {
        $firstEven = $n;
        break;
    }
}
echo $firstEven; // Outputs: 2

PHP 8.4: Simplified array operations with new functions like array_find and array_any.

$numbers = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5];

$firstEven = array_find($numbers, fn($n) => $n % 2 === 0);
echo $firstEven; // Outputs: 2

$hasNegative = array_any($numbers, fn($n) => $n < 0);
var_dump($hasNegative); // Outputs: bool(false)

4. Simplified Object Instantiation

PHP 8.3 and earlier: Method chaining after instantiation required wrapping the object in parentheses.

$result = (new Calculator())->add(5, 3)->getResult();

PHP 8.4: Directly chain method calls and property access.

$result = new Calculator()->add(5, 3)->getResult();

5. HTML5 Support in DOM Extension

PHP 8.3 and earlier: Limited support for HTML5 parsing and serialization in the DOM extension.

$dom = new DOMDocument();

$html = '<!DOCTYPE html><html><body><p>Open Swoole News and Tutorial</p></body></html>';
$doc = $doc->loadHTML($html);
echo $doc->saveHTML();

$node = (new DOMXPath($dom))->query("//body/p")[0];

PHP 8.4: Full HTML5 support for easier web development.

use DOM\HTMLDocument;

$html = '<!DOCTYPE html><html><body><p>Open Swoole News and Tutorial</p></body></html>';
$doc = HTMLDocument::createFromString($html);
echo $doc->saveHTML();

$node = $doc->querySelector('body > p');

6. Object-Oriented BCMath API

PHP 8.3 and earlier: BCMath functions were procedural.

$sum = bcadd('1.5', '2.5');
echo $sum; // Outputs: 4.0

PHP 8.4: BCMath gains an object-oriented API.

use BCMath\Number;

$num1 = new Number('1.5');
$num2 = new Number('2.5');
$sum = $num1 + $num2;
echo $sum; // Outputs: 4.0

7. #[Deprecated] Attribute

PHP 8.3 and earlier: Deprecations were documented but not explicitly marked in code.

function oldFunction() {
    trigger_error('Use newFunction() instead', E_USER_DEPRECATED);
    // ...
}

PHP 8.4: Use the #[Deprecated] attribute.

#[\Deprecated("Use newFunction() instead", since: "8.4")]
function oldFunction() {
    // ...
}

8. Lazy Objects

PHP 8.3 and earlier: Initialization of objects occurred immediately upon creation.

PHP 8.4: Lazy objects delay initialization until first use.

class Foo {
    public function __construct(private string $data) {
        // Some operation
    }
}

$initializer = fn() => new Foo('some data');
$reflector = new ReflectionClass(Foo::class);
$object = $reflector->newLazyGhost($initializer);

9. Enhanced Multibyte String Functions

PHP 8.3 and earlier: String trimming functions were not multibyte-safe.

$text = " こんにちは ";
$trimmed = trim($text);
echo $trimmed; // Outputs incorrect results for multibyte strings

PHP 8.4: New functions like mb_trim provide multibyte-safe trimming.

$text = " こんにちは ";
$trimmed = mb_trim($text);
echo $trimmed; // Outputs: こんにちは

10. Enhanced DateTime Methods

PHP 8.3 and earlier: Creating DateTime objects from timestamps required custom logic.

$timestamp = 1987654321;
$date = (new DateTime())->setTimestamp($timestamp);
echo $date->format('Y-m-d H:i:s');

PHP 8.4: New DateTime::createFromTimestamp(), DateTime::getMicrosecond(), DateTime::setMicrosecond(), DateTimeImmutable::createFromTimestamp(), DateTimeImmutable::getMicrosecond(), and DateTimeImmutable::setMicrosecond() methods.

$timestamp = 1987654321;
$date = DateTimeImmutable::createFromTimestamp($timestamp);
echo $date->format('Y-m-d H:i:s');
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