What’s New in PHP 8.4: A Developer’s Perspective

PHP 8.4, the latest major release of the popular scripting language, brings a host of new features and performance improvements. Let’s dive into the most significant additions:

New Features

1. Readonly Classes and Properties:

   • Readonly Classes: Define classes that cannot be extended or instantiated with the readonly keyword.
   • Readonly Properties: Declare properties that can only be assigned a value once, either in the constructor or as part of the property declaration.

2. Null is Disallowed in Denormalized Properties:

   • Prevent null values from being assigned to denormalized properties. This helps maintain data integrity.

3. Improved Type System:

   • Intersection Types in Return Types: Specify multiple types as a return type using the & operator.
   • First-Class Callable Syntax: Use fn() syntax to define anonymous functions directly within expressions.

Performance Improvements

• JIT Improvements: Further optimizations to the Just-In-Time compiler for enhanced performance.
• Opcache Preloading: Reduce application startup time by preloading frequently used PHP files into the opcode cache.

Other Notable Changes

• Deprecations: Some older features and syntax have been deprecated and will be removed in future versions.
• Bug Fixes: Numerous bug fixes and security improvements have been implemented.
• Follow this link for list of Whats New vs Deprecated

How to Upgrade

To upgrade to PHP 8.4, follow the official documentation for your specific operating system and web server. It’s recommended to test the upgrade thoroughly in a staging environment before deploying to production.

Conclusion

PHP 8.4 offers a significant step forward, providing developers with powerful new tools and performance optimizations. By leveraging these features, you can write more concise, type-safe, and efficient PHP code.