What is the difference between PHP5 and PHP7

PHP5 and PHP7 are two major versions of the PHP programming language, each with distinct features and improvements. PHP7, released in December 2015, introduced significant enhancements over PHP5, primarily in terms of performance, syntax, and additional functionalities.

Key Differences

  • Performance: PHP7 is significantly faster than PHP5. Benchmarks show that PHP7 can perform up to twice as fast as PHP5, which enhances web application performance and reduces server resource consumption.
  • Type Declarations: PHP7 introduced scalar type declarations and return type declarations, allowing developers to enforce stricter type rules.
  • Error Handling: PHP7 has a new Throwable interface that includes both exceptions and errors, making error handling more consistent and manageable.
  • New Syntax Features: PHP7 includes new operator features like the spaceship operator (<=>) for comparing values, and null coalescing operator (??).

Example Code

Here is a simple example showcasing the null coalescing operator in PHP7:

$username = $_GET['user'] ?? 'guest'; echo "Hello, $username!";

PHP5 PHP7 performance comparison type declarations error handling PHP syntax features

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