Author: Saim Khalid

With each new version of PHP, new functionality is added and at the same time certain obsolete functionality is removed. PHP version 7 is a major version when a number of PHP extensions and SAPIs (Server-side Application Programming Interface) were removed. In the subsequent PHP 8 version also, a few more extensions have been removed.…

As some new features are added with each new version, some features are also removed as they are deemed to be obsolete. In this chapter, we have a look at deprecated features after PHP version 5. Deprecated in PHP Ver 7 PHP 4 Style Constructors PHP 4 style Constructors are methods having same name as…

PHP has introduced a new function intdiv(), which performs integer division of its operands and return the division as int. The intdiv() function returns integer quotient of two integer parameters. If “a/b” results in “c” as division and “r” as remainder such that − a=b*c+r In this case, intdiv(a,b) returns r − intdiv(int$x,int$y):int The $x and $y are the…

The “use” keyword in PHP is found to be associated with multiple purposes, such as aliasing, inserting traits and inheriting variables in closures. Aliasing Aliasing is accomplished with the use operator. It allows you to refer to an external fully qualified name with an alias or alternate name. Example Take a look at the following…

Expectations are a backwards compatible enhancement to the older assert() function. Expectation allows for zero-cost assertions in production code, and provides the ability to throw custom exceptions when the assertion fails. assert() is now a language construct, where the first parameter is an expression as compared to being a string or Boolean to be tested. Configuration Directives for…

The acronym CSPRNG stands for Cryptographically Secure Pseudorandom Number Generator. PHP function library includes many functions that generate random numbers. For example − Example The following code shows how you can use the function mt_rand() to generate random numbers − <?php # Generates random integer between the range echo “Random integer: ” . rand(1,100) . PHP_EOL; #…

In PHP7, a new IntlChar class has been introduced. It provides access to a number of utility methods that can be used to access information about Unicode characters. There are a number of static methods and constants in Intl class. They adhere closely to the names and behavior used by the underlying ICU (International Components…

In PHP, the built-in function unserialize() is available from PHP version 4 onwards. With PHP 7, a provision to pass a list of allowed classes has been added. This allows the untrusted source to be filtered out. The unserialze() function unserializes the data from only the trusted classes. In PHP, serialization means generation of a…

In PHP, a closure is an anonymous function that has access to the variables in the scope in which it was created, even after that scope has closed. You need to specify use keyword in it. Closures are objects that encapsulate the function code and the scope in which they were created. With PHP 7, a new closure::call() method…

PHP doesnt provide any built-in function with which you can swap or interchange values of two variables. However, there are a few techniques which you can use to perform the swap. One of the most straightforward approaches is to use a third variable as a temporary place holder to facilitate swapping. Using the arithmetic operators…