About This Course

Course scope

This course is exactly the tool you need to get up and running with PHP 8 quickly. Not only do we cover new features, but we also show you how to avoid traps that could lead to code failure after a PHP 8 migration. In addition, we give you a glimpse into the future of PHP via thorough coverage of the JIT compiler and PHP asynchronous programming.

Intended audience

This course is for PHP developers at all levels who have experience in PHP 5 or above. If you’re just getting started with PHP, you’ll find the code examples useful for learning to use the language more effectively. Developers who have worked for a few months on one or more PHP projects will be able to apply the tips and techniques to the code at hand, while those with many years of PHP experience are sure to appreciate the concise coverage of new PHP 8 features.

Course structure

This course will provide you with hands-on experience in learning advanced PHP 8 concepts. We will learn the following concepts:

• New PHP 8 OOP Features: Introduces you to new PHP 8 features specific to object-oriented programming (OOP).

• PHP 8’s Functional Additions: Covers essential additions and enhancements introduced to PHP 8 at the procedural level.

• Taking Advantage of Error-Handling Enhancements: Explores one of the key improvements in PHP 8: its advanced error-handling capabilities. Learn which Notices have been upgraded to Warnings and which Warnings have now been promoted to Errors.

• Making Direct C-Language Calls: Helps you learn what the Foreign Function Interface (FFI) is all about, what it’s good for, and how to use it. The information is important for developers interested in rapid custom prototyping using direct C language calls.

• Discovering Potential OOP Backward-Compatibility Breaks: Introduces you to new PHP 8 features specific to OOP. It highlights situations where object-oriented code might break after a PHP 8 migration.

• PHP 8 Functional Differences: Covers potential backward d-compatibility breaks at the PHP 8 command or functional level. This highlights potential pitfalls when migrating existing code to PHP 8.

• Avoiding Traps When Using PHP 8 Extensions: This takes you through the major changes to extensions made and how to avoid traps when updating an existing application to PHP 8.

• PHP 8’s Deprecated or Removed Functionality: Walks you through functionality that has been deprecated or removed in PHP 8. You will also learn how to develop workarounds for functionality that has been removed, as well as how to refactor code that uses removed functionality involving extensions.

• Mastering PHP 8 Best Practices: Introduces you to best practices now enforced in PHP 8. It covers several significant method signature changes and how their new usage continues the general PHP trend of helping you to produce better code. You will also learn about changes in private methods, interfaces, traits, and anonymous classes and how namespaces are now parsed.

• Improving Performance: Introduces you to several new PHP 8 features that have a positive effect on performance, with a special focus on the new Just-In-Time compiler.

• Migrating Existing PHP Apps to PHP 8: Introduces a set of classes that form the basis of a PHP 8 backward-compatible break scanner. Throughout the course, you are shown potential code breaks that might follow a PHP 8 update. In addition, you will learn about the recommended process for migrating an existing customer PHP application to PHP 8.

• Creating PHP 8 Applications Using Asynchronous Programming: Explains the difference between the traditional synchronous and asynchronous programming models. In addition, popular PHP async extensions and frameworks, including the Swoole extension and ReactPHP are covered, with plenty of examples to get you started.

Prerequisites

To benefit immensely from this course, you must be familiar with the following:

• Be familiar with PHP OOP concepts.

• Hands-on practice of error handling in PHP.

• Knowledge of advanced concepts of PHP.