5.9-SERIES

5.9.3-RELEASE: Runtime class definition

The XP Group is proud to announce the immediate availability of the fourth release in the 5.9 series, version 5.9.3. This small release changes the runtime class definition functionality ClassLoader::defineClass() and ClassLoader::defineInterface() to load classes passed to them as parameters instead of raising exceptions, and thus adhere more to the "autoloading" scheme introduced with our dependency on PHP 5.3.0 and namespaces.

The full changelog is available in markdown format now.

Installation goes as always:

  $ cd ~/xp
  $ wget http://xp-framework.net/setup/5.9.3 -O - | php -- -d ~/bin/

5.9.2-RELEASE

The XP Framework group is proud to announce the immediate availability of the 5.9.2-RELEASE. In this release we focussed on refactoring the test suite to use the new unittest parametrization features introduced in 5.9.1 and generally added some fine tuning to the code.

5.9.2 is out and ready to be used:

  $ cd ~/xp
  $ wget http://xp-framework.net/setup/5.9.2 -O - | php -- -d ~/bin/

5.9.1-RELEASE: Unittest parameterization, generics fixes

Roughly a week after releasing 5.9.0, we're already bumping the version to 5.9.1. This is due to the fact that RFC #0267 - Unittest parameterization, which we're now including, was opened after the feature freeze we announced with the availability of 5.9.0RC7. We're also including a series of fixes (and quite a bit of tests accompanying them) for generics.

Long story short, here we are, 5.9.1 is out and ready to be used:

  $ cd ~/xp
  $ wget http://xp-framework.net/setup/5.9.1 -O - | php -- -d ~/bin/

XP Language and compiler, 1.10.0RC1: Compact syntax

After releasing version 1.9.0 last week, we've finally pushed forward the long-planned "compact syntax" feature which allows you to write value objects more concisely.

  public class Person {
    protected string $name;
  
    public __construct($this.name) { }
    public void setName($this.name) { }
    public this withName($this.name) { }
    public string getName() -> $this.name;
  }

XP Compiler, 1.9.0

The XP group is proud to announce the immediate availability of XP Compiler, r1.9.0. This release is the first release to depend on XP 5.9.0 (hence we use the .9.0 in the version to give a hint) and the first in the now-separated release cycle. Besides this infrastrure change, this release includes support for the self keyword in parameters and return types and a bugfix for uniqid() no longer generating unique ids.

XP Language is available as an "xpi"-installable module named xp-framework/xp-language.

XPI - Install XP Modules

With their release cycles separated, our contrib modules cannot be downloaded alongside the XP Framework's releases anymore. In order to work around this, we now provide the "xpi" utility.

Basic usage

  # This will search for modules
  $ xpi search query
  
  # This will show information about a module, and its releases (newest first)
  $ xpi info vendor/module
  
  # This will install the newest release of the specified module
  $ xpi add vendor/module
  
  # This will upgrade the module to the newest release
  $ xpi upgrade vendor/module
  
  # This will list installed modules
  $ xpi list

  $ cd ~/.xp
  
  # First usage
  $ xpi add xp-framework/xp-language
  
  # Later on
  $ xpi upgrade xp-framework/xp-language

5.9.0-RELEASE: PHP Namespaces adoption, core&contrib separation, PHP 5.5 Support

After three public release candidates (and 6 more private ones) and more than a year of development, the XP group is proud to announce the availability of XP Framework, 5.9.0-RELEASE.

The biggest changes over the 5.8-SERIES are the support for PHP namespaces (and with it the bump in the minimum required PHP version to 5.3.0) and the separation of the XP Framework's core release cycle from that of its contributed modules (such as Stomp connectivity, Google Search APIs, but also the XP Compiler), and runtime compatibility for PHP 5.5.0. On top, we're also including a long list of bugfixes and improvements, like the ability to handle multiple file uploads, pattern argument matching for the Mocking Framework, a REST file downloads API, and support for ".php" files inside .pth-files (think: vendor/example/Autoloader.php).

A word of caution: This release is not by all means backwards-compatible with the 5.8-SERIES! While generally we try to avoid this, from time to time it becomes necessary to introduce these changes. Please make sure you read through the Heads up section in the 5.9.0 ChangeLog!

Go get it:

  $ cd ~/xp
  $ wget 'http://xp-framework.net/setup/5.9.0' -O - | php -- -d ~/bin/

Enjoy

XP On Android

Does XP run on different platforms? Yes! But usually, when we say that, we think about Windows PCs, Macs, your Ubuntu workstation or Un*x servers. The XP Framework contains code to make this possible, and cover as many details of the underlying platform for you as possibe.

But what about tablets (or even smartphones)? Yes, we actually have been there a while ago. The most recent experiment in the row of platform adaption is XP on Android. To the right, see xp -v running on my GalaxyTab 2.

How was it done?
I used the APK provided by the PHP for Android project, which is a plugin for the Android-Scripting infrastructure. Both were installed using direct APK downloads, for which I needed to enable the "Install APKs from other sources" option. That gave me PHP (version 5.3.3) on Android. Unfortunately, this PHP binary comes without ext/tokenizer, a normally built-in PHP extension we rely on in parsing the annotations. Without this, the XP Framework won't work, so I started out handcrafting it. Once that was done, at least the framework's test suite would start. As expected, it was showing some errors, though.

Debugging
The process of editing on my Windows machine, then copying the file to the tablet, and then starting it by tapping the file inside the SL4A file list and choosing the "run in shell" option became a bit time-consuming. To my rescue, I found SSHDroid, which conveniently gave me SFTP and SSH shell access, something which can be better automated.

Status
With the new and more efficient setup I was able to make the XP Framework's core test suite pass completely on the tablet, yielding a green bar with OK: 931/1006 run (75 skipped), 931 succeeded, 0 failed inside. The changes in the framework and its test suite have already been committed and pushed.

The next steps would be to put up the necessary patches somewhere on GitHub

RFC #0208: Coding standards update: PHP 5.3 namespaces

Scope of change
The official XP Framework coding standards will be adjusted for new sourcecode using PHP 5.3 namespaces, and will include breaking changes. The old coding standards will be left untouched as to not suddenly un-comply all existing files. Affected are indentation, file header, namespace and use statements, as well as class names.

Rationale
Adjust to modern-day sourcecode and infrastructure.

Read the full RFC here - discussion welcome!

5.9.0, RC9

In the last three weeks since RC8, we'be been working on an easy, self-contained way to install XP contrib modules. Previously, these were just bundled with the release and available for download alongside the release files. Since we decoupled framework, compiler and contrib releases to allow separate release cycles, a replacement needed to be found: The all-new xpi utility accomplishes this job now. For more details, see RFC #270.

This release candidate also contains the various bugfixes to the TDS protocol implementation (MSSQL, Sybase), seeking support in our userland database drivers' buffered result sets (mssql+x, sybase+x, mysql+x) and enhancements to the REST serialization and marshalling infrastructure released in our 5.8.13 release.

Test-drive it using this:

  $ cd ~/xp
  $ wget 'http://xp-framework.net/setup/5.9.0RC9' -O - | php -- -d ~/bin/

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