Category: PHP

PHP Version 5.3 Upgrade Maintenance Notice

May 30, 2012 / Ahmandonk

We will be updating all of our servers to php version 5.3 next week starting Monday (04/05/2012).
There might be some php applications that are written specifically for 5.2.x or even 4.x versions.

Most of the publicly availabe applications such as WordPress, Joomla and others support php version 5.3.

If you have custom code websites written for php <= 5.2, please use this link (http://blog.plikhost.com/2012/05/30/how-to-migrate-from-php-5-2-to-php-5-3/) for guidance for updating your code to that compatible with php 5.3.

Please note that this will affect shared hosting servers.

If you don’t know if your code is compatible or not, we will be announcing the server updating process on this page: http://plikhost.com/support/

When you see that a server which you are on has been updated, please check your website and report any issues through our regular support channels (live chat or the ticket system) and we will help you solve any incompatibilities.

How to migrate from PHP 5.2 to PHP 5.3

May 30, 2012 / Ahmandonk

We are glad to announce that PLiKhost fully supports PHP 5.3 and this guide will show how to migrate from PHP version 5.2 to PHP version 5.3. The new release of PHP 5.3 brought many important additions and changes to PHP. Although longly awaited, some of the changes are not backwards compatible. Thus, code that worked fine with 5.2 may produce warnings or fail in 5.3.

Quick research shows that most prominent applications had to be patched or changed, even though minimally, to work cleanly with 5.3. To help people to convert their web applications to 5.3, I present here a migration script that would allow you to inspect your applications for potential migration problems.

Most improvements in PHP 5.3.x have no impact on existing code. There are a few incompatibilities and new features that should be considered, and code should be tested before switching PHP versions in production environments.

More information you can find in php.net webiste under this link: http://us2.php.net/manual/en/migration53.php
There is also migration script available for migration to PHP verion 5.3: https://github.com/smalyshev/migrate

This article is dedicated to shared web hosting services provided by PLiKhost.

PHP – the cross-platform scripting language that works for the growing usability of the web

September 10, 2010 / Ahmandonk

The web is getting smarter with every passing day, so making your website as user-focused and intuitively designed as possible is your main key to success. To be performing all necessary dynamic actions in response to your visitors’ behavior your website needs one of two things, a complete site building software (where no contact with the code is needed) or some good design/programming skills.

In either case you are most likely to be using (indirectly or directly) the services of the PHP programming language – the established basis for many user-friendly web applications (blog, CMS, forum, e-commerce, etc. scripts) on the Internet and the most widely used scripting language as far as developers are concerned.

PHP was conceived back in 1995 with one basic revolutionary idea in mind – to allow both an intuitive work with the code and much improved usability of the websites. After a long testing period PHP 3, the first official PHP version, came to light, followed by the much enhanced, efficient and faster PHP 4 version. One of the greatest advantages of the language is its ability to easily interact with databases like MySQL and PostgreSQL and it undergoes many improvements with each new version.

The 5th revision of the language – PHP 5, comes to fill in the gaps of its predecessors, offering a completely reworked object model (with constructors, destructors, abstract classes, etc.) and much improved cohesion with MySQL (the MySQL extensions comes with multi-query functions, SSL connections, etc.) and XML (W3 compatibility and efficient data processing). PHP5 is the first version where the programming logic is separated from the error manipulation. This is done via exception handling. Other new introductions to the PHP core are the Standard PHP Library (SPL) and the Iterators.

Currently, PHP4 and PHP5 are the two official stable versions of the language. Even though PHP 4 is no longer developed, it is still used in a lot of scripts due to its proven qualities. If in doubt which version to use when developing your dynamic website – take a look at the PHP 4 and PHP 5 Comparison article, giving you a comprehensive overview of the two releases, with illustrative examples included.

With over a decade of constant progress, PHP has undergone a series of major improvements to its core. Each new version it designed to further facilitate the users in building their websites and provide more possibilities for bettering the onsite experience of their visitors.

The new upcoming PHP revision – PHP 6, currently available as a beta release, is announced to ensure a bunch of long awaited introductions such as Unicode support, Alternative PHP Cache (APC), and upgrades to the previous versions, including “namespaces” added to the OO functionality, replaced extensions, removed ‘bad practice’ features like register_globals and magic_quotes.

If you are eager to test the newest PHP achievement – you may be interested to know that all plans by PLiKhost Web Hosting come with PHP 6 support (alongside the stable PHP versions). In case you are not a fan of experiments – you will still be perfectly well with PHP 5 or PHP 4, whichever version suits your website’s platform best.