The Futuristic Advanced PHP - Part 2

In this series on What's New in PHP 7, we first discussed about major features of the latest PHP version 7+. And now in this second post, I will list down major improvements.

1. Arrays as constants

   define('APP_DIRS', array('app', 'incl', 'lib'));

2. Unicode codepoint Escape Syntax

   • Requires double-quoted string + escape syntax
   • "\u{ codepoint }"

3. Uniform variable syntax

   $name = 'car'; $car = array('name' => 'BMW', 'year' => 2014); echo $$name['name']; // PHP 5: Warning: Illegal string offset 'name' // PHP 7: BMW`

4. Grouped imports with use()

   require_once('constants.php'); require_once('database.php'); require_once('plurals.php'); // PHP 7`\ use App\Library\{Constants, Database as DB, Plurals}`

5. Catchable exceptions and errors The errors which were not catchable in PHP 5 are now possible using new error sub classes. Follow the below Error Hierrachy classes, please note Error & Exception classes are different, so use it wisely.

   • Throwable

   • Error

     • ArithmeticError
     • DivisionByZeroError
     • AssertionError
     • ParseError
     • TypeError

   • Exception

     • LogicException
     • RuntimeException

PS: One cannot create a subclass of throwable because it is an interface by both Error and Exception, not an actual class.

6. Integer division with intdiv()

   // Before echo (int)(5/2); // 2 echo (float)(5/2); // 2

// After echo intdiv(5, 2); // 2