First release candidate PHP 5.3.0 (PHP 5.3.0RC1)

The first release candidate of the new PHP 5.3.0 branch (PHP 5.3.0RC1) is available for download. This release marks the final stage of much work to improve the 5th branch of PHP, including many new features, bug fixes and security improvements.

What's new:

• namespace support
• increase in productivity
• late static binding
• lambda functions and closures
• syntax extension: NOWDOC, limited GOTO support, abbreviated format of the ternary operator?: , __callStatic () method
• circular reference garbage collector
• mysqlnd is a native replacement for libmysql
• improved Windows support
• more accurate rounding of floating point numbers
• new error level E_DEPRECATED
• improvements in the format of the php.ini configuration file
• The distribution includes new extensions: ext / phar, ext / intl, ext / fileinfo, ext / sqlite3, ext / enchant
• countless bug fixes and improvements to existing extensions, in particular in ext / openssl, ext / spl and ext / date

Also in this release, some extensions were excluded and the internal APIs were unified. Possible problems with backward compatibility:

• due to the unification of the parameter processing API, some functions behave more or less strictly when manipulating types
• remote extensions: ext / mhash, ext / msql, ext / pspell, ext / sybase
• Extensions moved to the PECL repository: ext / ming, ext / fbsql, ext / ncurses, ext / fdf
• removed compatibility mode zend.ze1

All PHP users, especially those who still use earlier versions of PHP 5, are encouraged to test this release.

Update Information: cvs.php.net/viewvc.cgi/php-src/UPGRADING?view=markup&pathrev=PHP_5_3
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Official announcement: www.php.net/archive/2009.php#id2009-03-24-1

Download: qa.php.net

PS: I don’t know how anyone, but most of all I was waiting for the support of anonymous functions and closures. Today I will deliver.