What’s New in PHP 7 ?

PHP 7 is a major release of the PHP programming language and comes with many new features, improvements, and bug fixes. Some of the key features and improvements in PHP 7 are:

• Improved Performance: PHP 7 is significantly faster than its predecessor PHP 5.6. It has a new engine called Zend Engine 3.0, which is faster and uses less memory than the previous engine. This means that PHP 7 can handle more requests per second and can serve more users with the same hardware.

• Scalar Type Declarations: PHP 7 introduces scalar type declarations, which allow developers to specify the data type of function arguments and return values. This helps to improve code quality and makes it easier to catch errors at compile time.

Example:

function sum(int $a, int $b) : int {
    return $a + $b;
}

• Return Type Declarations: PHP 7 also introduces return type declarations, which allow developers to specify the data type of the return value of a function. This helps to improve code quality and makes it easier to catch errors at compile time.

Example:

function sum(int $a, int $b) : int {
    return $a + $b;
}

• Null Coalescing Operator: PHP 7 introduces the null coalescing operator (??), which allows developers to check if a variable is set and not null, and if it is not, it returns a default value.

Example:

$name = $_GET['name'] ?? 'Guest';

• Spaceship Operator: PHP 7 introduces the spaceship operator (<=>), which allows developers to compare two values and returns -1, 0, or 1 depending on whether the first value is less than, equal to, or greater than the second value.

Example:

echo 1 <=> 2; // returns -1
echo 2 <=> 2; // returns 0
echo 3 <=> 2; // returns 1

• Anonymous Classes: PHP 7 introduces anonymous classes, which allow developers to create classes without specifying a name. This is useful for creating one-off objects that don't need to be reused.

Example:

$object = new class {
    public function hello() {
        echo 'Hello, world!';
    }
};

$object->hello(); // outputs 'Hello, world!'

• Group Use Declarations: PHP 7 introduces group use declarations, which allow developers to import multiple classes from the same namespace in a single statement.

Example:

use MyNamespace\{Class1, Class2, Class3};

These are just some of the key features and improvements in PHP 7. There are many more, including improved error handling, consistent 64-bit support, and more.