PHP 8.5 is available on all servers

PHP 8.5 is now available on servers managed by ServerPilot. There are many improvements, changes, new features, and deprecations in PHP 8.5.

Here we’ll provide a summary of the most important changes in PHP 8.5. For the full list of changes, see PHP’s official documentation on migrating code from PHP 8.4 to 8.5.

Changes in PHP 8.5

New Features in PHP 8.5

Pipe operator |>

PHP 8.5 adds a new operator, the pipe operator |> to chain multiple callables from left to right, taking the return value of the left callable and passing it to the right. Learn more.

curl_multi_get_handles function

The Curl extension in PHP 8.5 adds a new function named curl_multi_get_handles that returns an array of CurlHandle objects from a CurlMultiHandle object.

PHP_BUILD_DATE constant

PHP 8.5 introduces a new PHP constant named PHP_BUILD_DATE that is assigned the time and date the PHP binary is built.

get_exception_handler and get_error_handler functions

PHP 8.5 allows setting custom error and exception handlers which get called when an error is triggered, or an exception is uncaught. It is also possible to restore the previous exception and error handlers. Learn more.

Stack trace support for PHP Fatal errors

PHP 8.5 adds a new feature so that fatal error messages contain the full stack trace. Learn more.

locale_is_right_to_left function and Locale::isRightToLeft method

The Intl extension in PHP 8.5 adds new functionality to determine if a given locale uses an RTL (Right-to-Left) script.

array_first and array_last functions

PHP 8.5 adds two new functions for retrieving the first and last values of an array. These functions complement the array_key_first and array_key_last functions added in PHP 7.3. Learn more.

php —ini=diff to output non-default INI directives

The PHP CLI executable in PHP 8.5 supports a new php —ini=diff command-line flag, which lists INI directives that differ from the built-in default values.

IntlListFormatter class

The Intl extension in PHP 8.5 adds a new class named IntlListFormatter. It provides locale-aware formatting for lists into human-readable lists of “and”-lists, “or”-lists, or units.

max_memory_limit INI directive to set a ceiling memory_limit

When a max_memory_limit value is set, it becomes the largest value the memory_limit INI is allowed to set.

Deprecations in PHP 8.5

• all MHASH_* constants are deprecated along with the existing deprecation for the mhash functions.
• PHP 8.5 deprecates the four alternative scalar type names (integer, double, boolean, and binary).
• Returning non-string values from a user output handler is deprecated.
• Emitting output from custom output buffer handlers is deprecated.

How to Switch to PHP 8.5

You can change an app to use PHP 8.5 through your app’s Settings in ServerPilot. If your app does not work with PHP 8.5, you can easily change back to the PHP version you were using before.

As always, please contact us if you have any questions.