Why Should You Move From PHP 5 to PHP 7?

Web Development

PHP widely used programming languages when it comes to web development. 82% of websites developed in PHP.

They want to continue dominating it; hence, they are continuously introducing new versions to keep up with rapidly changing technology. PHP 7 has a fast predecessor in compare to PHP 5.

40% of users, according to a case study, leave a website; if it takes time to load PHP 7, it eradicates this problem and increases the number of people that will visit your site. PHP 7 helps to run scripting language efficiently.

What’s New in PHP 7?

PHP 7 is double the speed when we compare it to PHP 5. PHP 7 will also compete with Facebook’s Hip Hop Virtual Machine (HHVM). PHP 7 can also run on WordPress 4.1.1, which will allow developers to execute twice the request in seconds as compared to PHP 5.

Comparison of PHP 5 and PHP 7

Return Type

With the help of PHP 7, we can, by default, return values. With the help of this now, programmers can choose a type of variable that they want to return. In PHP 7, we can declare the function as an array.

Here is an example of it function f1(): array() { return []; }

New Spaceship (<=>) and Null Coalescing (??) Operators

In PHP 7, various new operators introduced. Its symbol is <=>. Spaceship operator used in sorting & in the combined comparison. When both the left-hand operators are equal, then the answer is 0 if the left operand is greater than right, then the answer is 1. The result is going to be -1 if the left operand is smaller than the right.

Operator	<=>equivalent
$a <$b	($a <=>$b) ===-1
$a <= $b	($a <=>$b) ===-1
$a == $b	($a <=>$b) ==0
$a != $b	($a <=>$b) !==0
$a>=$b	($a <=>$b) ===1
$a >$b	($a <=>$b) ===1

In PHP 5

functionorder_func($a , $b)
{
return ($a < $b) ? -1 : (($a > $b) ? 1 : 0);
}

In PHP 7

functionorder_func($a , $b)
{
return $a <=> $b;
}

Add Anonymous Classes

With the help of PHP 7, we can quickly introduce the OOPs concept that is adding an Anonymous class. Now a question may arise in your brain that what is Anonymous class and how it can be useful.

Anonymous class means a class with no name. Using it, we can easily add the speed of code and execution time. You don’t require the document in the project document.

var_dump(new class($i) {
public function __construct($i)
$this-> =$i;
}
});

64-Bit Windows Systems Support

All the previous versions of the PHP didn’t run on Windows; it only runs on Linux, but PHP 7 has also solved this problem. PHP 7 can run on the X64 bit Windows system.

New Operators

PHP 7 has added some new operators who will have the center of attention. The spaceship operator in a technical term is known as a three-way comparison operator. The operators are beneficial for the PHP programmers and used in sorting any function.

PHP 7 Offers Better Development Features

PHP is an open-source language, and it is available quite easily; hence, every developer can opt for it. It creates a massive amount of problems too. Because new developers sometimes end up writing a sparse code that easily avoided with the help of PHP 7. What PHP 7 does is that it removes poorly written, outdated functions that are now no more used in the language automatically.

Types hints and declaration

In PHP 7, we can use advice and confirmation, which will allow us to keep the data remain constant when it passes through the PHP script.

Power of Error Handling

In PHP 7, we have a Zend engine with the help of which we can handle the error without the system failure at run time.
In PHP 7, we can handle errors more profoundly with the help of a new class known as Exception Base Class.

Conclusion

In PHP 7, a vast amount of changes introduced when we compare it with its older versions. I think after reading the blog, you are going to convince that why we should use PHP 7 instead of PHP 5. PHP 7 is very beneficial for developers as it helps them to use Anonymous class, use New Spaceship (<=>) operator, etc.

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