Thiemo’s Weblog

Whats new in PHP 7.1?

• Class constants can be made protected and private.
• Nullable type declarations allow to replace function ( ValueType $value = null ) with function ( ?ValueType $value ). The only difference between the two is that the new syntax does not make the parameter optional any more.
• void as a return type.
• We can replace array|Traversable type hints with iterable now. is_iterable() goes along with this new pseudo type.
• catch ( TypeAException | TypeBException $ex )
• list() supports keys. This is pretty significant. Before, we could only deconstruct numerically indexed, non-sparse arrays.
• Instead of list( $a, $b ) =, we can now write [ $a, $b ] =.
• We can replace substr( $string, -1 ) with $string[-1]. I'm not sure if we should, but we can.

• We can finally replace \stdClass type hints with object.
• mb_chr() as well as mb_ord() are new.
• Having dealt with the oddities of IEEE floating point numbers before, I find the new constants PHP_FLOAT_MIN, PHP_FLOAT_MAX, PHP_FLOAT_EPSILON, and PHP_FLOAT_DIG fascinating. Even if they won't end in a lot of code, they give some insight into how floating point numbers work.
• Regular expressions support the /J modifier, which makes it possible to have the same named capturing group multiple times in the regular expression. Note that the inline (?J) was already supported before.
• PREG_UNMATCHED_AS_NULL (instead of empty strings) will definitely come in handy.
• The GD extension can read and write BMP files now. Uh, what? o_O? In exchange, a few awkwardly specific WBMP conversion functions got deprecated.
• create_function() got deprecated in favor of anonymous functions.
• each() got deprecated in favor of foreach.

• mb_strtoupper( 'Straße' ) now produces »STRASSE«. I find this a super-welcome addition. But it can also have massive implications, like changing the result of string comparisons.
• is_countable() is true for arrays and objects that implement Countable.
• array_key_first() and array_key_last() can often act as a much cleaner replacement for complicated code utilizing array_keys(), or awkward combinations of end() and key().
• Array destructuring can be combined with references: list( &$a ). Same for the new [ … ] = syntax.
• The heredoc syntax for strings became more flexible. Most notably: the closing marker can be indented.