Dropped support of PHP4

[ameeck]

As you may have notices, it looks like phpBB is dropping support for PHP versions prior to 5.1

I don't know if it is something which was know but I am quite surprised…though I welcome it

The CVS statistics will give you more:
http://area51.phpbb.com/statcvs/

Also look at the number of lines of code dropping almost 50k in one series of commits

[DavidMJ]

In the next few days, more and more code should be translated into proper PHP 5.1 support. If after a week, you may post bugs related to the PHP 5.1 work here (assuming we don't get the bug tracker online) Until then, please hold bugs to yourselves. Right them down somewhere

[DBM]

Hmmm, that's slightly worrying for me as my current hosts are still using php 4.4.4.

So in the unlikely event that any major bugs are found in 3.0.0, does this mean any updates won't run on php4?

What happens if my host does upgrade the server to php5 anyway? Does the board automatically adjust or do I have to reinstall?

[ameeck]

No, if your host upgrades, phpBB will be working fine without any action from your side, it will actually be working better probably

As for the support of PHP4. 3.0.x will be supporting versions prior to 5.1.0, look at the topic in phpBB3 Discussion on phpBB.com, some questions have been answered there. PHP5 will be required for the next major release -> phpBB 3.2

[Highway of Life]

Hmmm, that's slightly worrying for me as my current hosts are still using php 4.4.4.

As of January 1st, 0:00 hours (midnight), 2008. PHP4 is no longer supported by The PHP Group. Therefore it makes no sense for phpBB to release software here forward that supports an unsupported version of PHP.
There are many things that PHP5 allows us to do that PHP4 does not have the capability of doing, so this change is a very good move.

So in the unlikely event that any major bugs are found in 3.0.0, does this mean any updates won't run on php4?

3.0.x will support PHP4, it is 3.2+ that will support PHP 5.1+ only.

What happens if my host does upgrade the server to php5 anyway? Does the board automatically adjust or do I have to reinstall?

3.0.x is made to work on PHP4 or PHP5 regardless of what you have setup, the software detects the version automatically, so you won’t need to do anything.

[GPHemsley]

So in the unlikely event that any major bugs are found in 3.0.0, does this mean any updates won't run on php4?

3.0.x will support PHP4, it is 3.2+ that will support PHP 5.1+ only.

How come the team chose not to align with the GoPHP5 initiative and move all the way up to PHP 5.2? Or is that answered elsewhere?

[DavidMJ]

Can you give me a single feature of PHP 5.2 that we could use? That is mainly the issue.

[GPHemsley]

Can you give me a single feature of PHP 5.2 that we could use? That is mainly the issue.

Ah, I see. I think the main argument for PHP 5.2 over PHP 5.1 is the inclusion of PDO by default.

See these links below for more information (though you probably already have):
http://www.php.net/manual/en/migration52.php (alternative "docs" link)
http://www.php.net/manual/en/ref.pdo.php (alternative "docs" link)

[DavidMJ]

This would matter if I liked PDO. However, PDO has multiple issues with it being a viable candidate to host a phpBB DBAL (using SQLite, try to do an UPDATE query inside of a loop, this loop is the "while" part of a SELECT query. Also, the "UPDATE" query has a transaction around it)

[LEW21]

phpBB2 has worked on PHP5, but you weren't supporting it. You can do the same with phpBB 3.2 and PHP 5.1 and join the GoPHP5 project. Any script, that can alone push the webservers to go to PHP5, doesn't exist. But when all most popular scripts will try to push them, they will just have to upgrade.