PHP4 vs PHP5

Are you using PHP5? What do you think of it compared to PHP4? What are the features you like in PHP5, or dislike?

Just see if I should upgrade to PHP5

 

I personally have used PHP5, but i'd rather stick with 4 for now, mainly becuase thats what most scripts use. PHP5 does have stronger OOP abilitys, but that doesn't outweigh the cons for me. I'm not a fan of the mysqli extension either, I didn't see anything wrong with general mySQL.

Just my 2 cents.

 

I think you'll find better support for php4 out there if you are using anything other than custom scripts. I thought about going the 5 route since I'm doing a fresh install right now, but it's just not worth it yet. The smart people always adopt about 6-12 months after the early adopters say it's stable.

Unless you have a need, or are looking to do some new development for a big project, stick to 4.

Heck, php themselves told everyone to stay away from apache 2 for a really long time. To the point where the apache developers started to get bent out of shape about it.

 

I am not doing some new development for a big project. I just want to see how other developers think about PHP5, to see if it is worthy to install and start "learning" it.

 

To start learning it? Definitely.

 

Ya, better start learning it first. Is there a way to have PHP4 and PHP5 to co-exist on the same machine?

 

Sure. Assuming you mean your desktop machine, some possibilities that come to mind:
- Just switch (manually) between two Apache configuration files (one Apache installation), one for PHP4 and the other for PHP5. Disadvantage is you can't run both at the same time.
- Keep two separate Apache installations, on different ports for instance. Both will run at the same time. Might have to install Apache 1.3 and Apache 2 in order to allow two installations (on Windows).
- Try installing some pre-packaged WAMP suite (Apache + MySQL + PHP for Windows) in two different locations. As they are usually self-contained in their parent directory, this could be the easiest solution.

If you want to run both on your server, it will depend a lot on what operating system the server runs. I think Debian Linux, for instance, would allow you to have both PHP versions as they've cleanly separated the packages, configuration directories etc.

 

What he said...

It's easiest if you are custom compiling on linux and not using an RPM distro. If you have to use RPM's, you might be able to get away with 1.3x with php4 and 2.x with php5, but you need to check the install directories out. I suppose you could do it on a single apache install if you were using php as a cgi, but it's going to be a lot easier to deal with if you just have two apache installs on the machine in different directories.

 

I actually meant to have it installed on my desktop machine - Windows. My favorite WAMP is EasyPHP. The latest version which is version 1.8 doesn't incorporate PHP5 yet.

I wonder if I get another WAMP such as http://www.wampserver.com/en/index.php, will it screw up my existing apache + PHP installation?

Have you used any other WAMP?

 

I use Wampserver and I have found it to be the easiest of the "prepackaged" systems to use. You can get a PHP4 add-on as well as several others they have, best buy for the money

 

Do you have to pay for WAMP5 or the add-ons?

 

No that was a joke, I figured it would come off poorly. It's completely free

 

It's not hard at all to write scripts cross-compatible with both versions, but for some odd reason a lot of larger programs used constructs that should have never been used anyway, which is why they're deprecated now.. and it breaks quite a few of the older programs. Even though my scripts port fine to PHP5, it's pretty much useless on a production server due to legacy scripts.

 

Hi experts,
M newbie to php...Can anybody tell me why should we use PHP5 version as I've been asked this question in an Interview and I din have perfect answer for that...I did googling with this...but I want to know whether I was asked to compare Php4 with PHP5 or PHP5 with simple(non object oriented).
Please reply

 

@nidz simple answer every new version comes out is better than the old one, same with PHP5, many bug fixes, better OOP, many new functions and supports and much more

 

Clear that PHP 5 is better
PHP 5 came with more object-oriented features...

 

You are right new PHP5 has lots of new features which is shared here by you.
Can you explain some deeply abut new features.

 

Do you guys have any idea that, you are commenting on a topic made in 2005?
Anyone uses php 4 anymore these days? Really??

 

PHP4 is more of a procedure language while PHP5 is object oriented. While PHP4 does have some OOP, there are differences: http://www.kavoir.com/2009/01/php4-class-differences-from-php5.html

 

Thanks for your valuable help.