We have a brand new website Just launch in June. The developers built it on PHP 4 we wnet to upgrade or hosting to VSP and found no space available. Then only to find out PHP 4 will not be supported afte Dec. this year. Can anyone give us some insight on what we have in front of us? The amount of work ect? The hosting company says we have no choice but to upgrade. Thanks
I can tell you there are not that many differences. Most PHP Code will work with PHP 5, just not vica versa. There are a few querks and issues, but only if you happen to run into those little specific things (which are provided in the link above). Personally I am all about PHP 5 and its objects, and its time people drop 4, seeing as how 6 is almost ready to be released.
It's not so hard. For me this resource helped me a lot. Migrating from PHP 4 to PHP 5 /derickrethans.nl/pres-breaking/talk.html
This all depends on your coders. If you have experienced PHP5 programmers writing in PHP4 you might not need to change anything.
php4 -> php5 is a breeze, if coded correctly from the start, you should not see any major issues. Best thing to happen to php thus far.
well I don't know about my original coders, I have fears, any guess on the cost for a 5,000 product site.
From PHP4 -> PHP5 it's fairly easy. If you're going back (NEVER SHOULD BE) then you'll have to rewrite loads of custom functions for the ones you lost. I've personally written a large amount of custom functions, along with the if(!function_exists) command, so I can make the function work in both PHP4+5.
There should be no reason one would have to re-write anything going from PHP 4 to PHP 5. It is mostly in the objects that get the overhaul. A few reserved keyword functions and the like, and a lot of bug fixes. Standard procedural based PHP will be clear, and if you happened to use one of the invalid functions on the switch, simply change it. Only minor differences happened with the code, not major.