[RESOLVED] Finally upgrading

[dougal85]

I have finally started to make the move to PHP5

I have kept putting it off because my host doesnt support it but if all goes well, i'll just start the search for a new host. (any recomendations? uk based preferably)

For peoples experience how easy is it to upgrade a project from PHP4? It is OOP, or as OOP as it can be in PHP4 - however, i think this could cause the biggest problem. Since this is where the most changes are right?

The project isnt all that big, maybe ~ 3000 lines of code.

I've started playing around with PHP5 and it seems cool so far, I've done quite a bit of programming in Java and C# so some of it feels like 'finally, i can do that!' however other bits feel a bit confusing.

So... basically, any pointers to get me going? :) Does anybody know of any good reads out there on upgrading?

Hmm, i'm not quite sure what my question is in this post... just general advice maybe.

I believe some functions are still there but are being depreciated? so i will want to remove using these. is there a list somewhere?

Thanks in advance.

[Houdini]

Well here is the change log for PHP5 from the official PHP Manual (http://www.php.net/ChangeLog-5.php)
Note that this is extensive and will take a little while to absorbe and also remember some things wriiten in PHP 5 wil not work at all with PHP 4 since it is not necessarily backwards compatible and some things that were problems in PHP 4 have been corrected, this is a new PHP altogether and OOP is much more supported than in the PHP 4 version so if you are comfortable with PHP 5 and how the OOP functions work with it they will not work (most of the new features of OOP) in PHP 4 so get used to a long transition from one to the other and plan on altering code in some OOP cases to do what you want to do.

[dougal85]

Jesus... thats one long list.

I know its significantly different but I think it will be ok, just something for me to get used to. Afterall, the language from what i can see is still basically the same.

I guess i'll start porting my project over, i'll just start at line 1 of the index.php and go forward like that 8-)

Get read for some problems! :P

[Houdini]

If you don't have problems you are not HUMAN...good luck. I use it in some cases but not so much yet since most webservers still use PHP4

[bradgrafelman]

If you're positive that you're going to upgrade, you can minimize downtime by installing a server locally (or finding a production server) with PHP5. Copy your app over to this server and start tweaking it. That way you can just upload your PHP5-compatible source to the new host.

EDIT: Forgot to add... this is also probably the best way to prepare your script for PHP5. Just throw it on your testing server and set error_reporting to E_ALL and let PHP tell you where the problems are.

[dougal85]

Cool, thanks. I had meant to ask if i should do that, wasnt sure if it was a good idea or not.

Thanks again

[Weedpacket]

Jesus... thats one long list.You should see the changelog for PHP 4 (http://www.php.net/ChangeLog-4.php). The only part of PHP5's changelog that is really relevant when upgrading from 4 are the bits right down the bottom for the 5.0.0 versions. And not even all of that (one change reads "Fixed bug #28999 (fixed behaviour of exec() to work as it did in 4.X).")

More relevant for your purposes would be the Migration (http://www.php.net/manual/en/migration5.php) chapter.

[dougal85]

Cool, that might be a better read! thanks ;)

[dougal85]

Well, I tried one of my projects and ... wow. it worked.

I'm actually quite amazed, there was only one error.

I istalled WAMP (with the PHP4 addon) so i could swap between the two easily and try stuff out.

Maybe this migration wont be as bad as i thought, but i need to go through and chech its all really working still 8-)

[bradgrafelman]

What error_reporting setting are you checking all of this under? I personally think it'd be a good idea to set the level to E_ALL and fix even warnings/notices that might not bring the script to a screeching halt.

[dougal85]

I'm on E_ALL and i'm not getting anything :S the only error had was in a class i had defined a varaible twice by mistake

ie;



class something {

var $something = "hello";
var $something = "hello";

}

[dougal85]

Ok, ive found my first thing that doesnt *need* changing but i guess i should change it.

i'm ofcourse using mysql (normal) from PHP4.

so i see i can use mysqli just like i would have with mysql in php.

OR i can create it as an object.

Is the only reason for this to allow the programmer the flexability of doing it either way? and i assume there is no difference... right?

Also, how can i take a peak at the mysqli object code?

[Weedpacket]

so i see i can use mysqli just like i would have with mysql in php.MySQL isn't able to communicate with more recent versions of MySQL as effectively. The dbms-specific interfaces are being downgraded in prominence in favour of PDO.mysql object code?If you mean the object that represents the database connection, it's unlikely to be implemented in PHP; you'll be looking at the application source code to track that down. On the other hand there are some .NET-style reflection classes that allow some dissection of objects.

[dougal85]

The dbms-specific interfaces are being downgraded in prominence in favour of PDO.

Intersting, it looks good ive done allot of reading on it.

However... I cant get it working on the PHP5 server i have, i keep getting the error "could not find driver"

Do i need to install it? or are the drivers included? How can i check?

Thanks

[dougal85]

fixed it! had to update my php.ini