5.9-SERIES

Support for PHP 5.5.0 Beta 3

Following up on our blog on PHP 5.5.0 support, we've successfully verified the XP Framework works with the most recent PHP 5.5 version, beta 3:

  $ unittest core/src/test/config/unittest/*ini
  OK: 5820/6439 run (619 skipped), 5820 succeeded, 0 failed
  Memory used: 60472.76 kB (72210.46 kB peak)
  Time taken: 13.954 seconds

5.9.0, RC8

Since we released RC7 a week ago, we've continued to polish the 5.9.0-RELEASE:

• We've deprecated xp::$registry in favor of dedicated functionality - see pull request #270
  
• We've removed the ability to run (procedurally written) scripts using require('lang.base.php') as their first line for bootstrapping. This method has been deprecated for five years now, pull request #269 contains the details.
  
• We've changed the lang.types.Number and its subclasses to no longer to check input when using the new constructor for performance reasons. If you want that, the valueOf() method is the correct choice
  
• We've succeeded in adding even more performance improvements to the lang.types.String class
  

  $ cd ~/xp
  $ wget http://xp-framework.net/setup/5.9.0RC8 -O - | php -- -d ~/bin/

Enjoy

XP 5.9.0, release candidate

The first public release candidate for the upcoming XP 5.9.0, RC7, is now available. While there have been several pre-releases, this is the first one we officially announce here. This release shows the feature-complete 5.9.0 release, until the final release, we'll now only allow bugfixes.

With this RC we start the 5.9-SERIES, which we've been planning and developing on since November 2011. The 5.9-SERIES of the XP Framework are the first to require PHP 5.3.0, and start adapting its features, like namespaces and closures. We've also split the "contrib" modules and the XP Compiler from the framework in order to allow for separate release cycles.

What we didn't include in this series were modules, a feature we didn't feel we'd get stable enough up to the release date; although they're still on the agenda as prerequisite for modularizing the framework itself. We've also refrained from converting the entire code base to PHP namespaces in order to make the transition easier. And we didn't end up adding an IoC container because we didn't find a suitable implementation. The ChangeLog is impressive, nevertheless.

The first-installation is almost the same as before, only that we now provide a slightly shorter URL:

  $ cd ~/xp
  $ wget http://xp-framework.net/setup/5.9.0RC7 -O - | php -- -d ~/bin/

Enjoy

PHP 5.5.0 support

When the PHP group announced the first publicly available PHP 5.5 alpha back in November 2012, we were excited to see almost all of our tests passing (well, that is, after removing finally()), and after adjusting for some changes in preg_replace and unpack,first announced PHP 5.5 support at the end of 2012. The rest of the alpha versions so far have worked out equally well.

Fast forward to a week ago, when the PHP group released beta 1, we didn't expect much to change. The test suite was showing quite a bit of error noise, didn't complete but stopped halfway through and worst of all, was showing failed assertions in suspicious places. While the whole story is covered in this GitHub issue, the summary is our mechanism for producing unique IDs was not sufficient anymore. We did find a workaround with an almost negligible performance hit, though.

Yesterday, PHP 5.5.0 beta 2 was made available to the public, and the test suite looks good with both opcache enabled and disabled. Looking at the PHP 5.5 todos, and given no release candidates have been published, we could still be a while away from a PHP 5.5.0 release, though. On the other side, there don't appear to be any game-changers in the backlog, so we still feel confident in stating XP 5.9 will support PHP 5.5.0 and the entire range from PHP 5.3.0 towards that!

Happy easter!

New Timer::measure() method

The util.profiling.Timer class has been extended with a new method measure() which works on callables. Here's an example on how the new method can be used with closures:

  $timer= Timer::measure(function() {
    // This is where the stuff happens
  });
  $elapsed= $timer->elapsedTime();

Heads up: Current "master" now requires PHP 5.3.0+

With the implementation of RFC #0265, the minimum PHP version required to run the XP Framework's current 5.9-SERIES is PHP 5.3.0. This gives us the following version ranges:

• 5.8-SERIES: PHP 5.2.0 .. PHP 5.4.x
  
• 5.9-SERIES: PHP 5.3.0 .. PHP 5.5.x
  

RFC #0265: Bump PHP requirement to PHP 5.3.0 minimum

Scope of Change
The minimum PHP requirement for the XP Framework master branch will be bumped from 5.2.10 (5.2.0 unofficially also worked!) to 5.3.0.

Rationale
This will enable us to work with namespaces, get_called_class(), static, and remove various PHP 5.2.x workarounds.

Read the full RFC here

RFC #0220: Modules - Classpath meta information & initializers

Scope of Change
Every class path element will be able to provide a way to provide meta information. When it does so, we will call this class path element a module. Modules are named, may have a version, are accessible by reflection, annotatable and may contain initializer blocks.

Rationale
Prerequisite for XP Framework Modularization.

Read the full RFC here

PHP 5.5 Support in XP 5.9

With the second alpha released, and preliminary work already committed to the 5.8-SERIES, we now officially support PHP 5.5 in the XP 5.9 branch. Thankfully, Travis-CI is an early adopter, so we're able to test 5.5 there!

Please note: The 5.8-SERIES doesn't work - its finally() core functionality conflicts with the new finally implementation present in PHP 5.5. We've deprecated it in the forward compatibility release 5.8.9 (details) but won't remove it until 5.9.0.

PHP 5.5 Generators

I started playing around with PHP's new generator functionality today now that 5.5.0 alpha2 has been released, trying to find out what they can be used for, and what real-life role they will play in a future XP Framework.

While they'll make some portions of code easier to write (and less code is always better!), they do come at the disadvantage that they're not 100% BC break free: As long as you iterate, you're fine, once you start using stuff as arrays, you're out of luck and will start seeing "Cannot use object of type Generator as array" fatals.

Where they'll come in handy is where we implement IteratorAggregate - its getIterator() implementation will become much easier; instead of having to construct an object with current, key, next, rewind and valid methods, we can simply yield the elements. One example is the util.collections.Vector class, which will be changed to contain just this:

  public function getIterator() {
    foreach ($this->elements as $element) {
      yield $element;
    }
  }

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