The web development landscape is transforming rapidly, as a number of technologies have become the apple of eyes in the market. In this vertical, PHP has gained huge traction as it is enabling businesses to procure web applications at a cost-effective price with less hassle.
The way WordPress is becoming prominent for small and medium-sized business website development, it is also updating at a faster pace. And! Now! Version 5.6 is on the way to begin its journey. However, its compatibility with PHP 8 is a major point of interest among developers.
In this article, we will understand the compatibility of WordPress 5.6 with PHP 8. So, stay hooked with this content.
An Insight on PHP
Who doesn’t know about the glory of PHP in the present world? Being a programming language, PHP is admired for its nature to generate a web page and run it on the server-side. And! PHP is the critical technology used for WordPress development.
PHP 7x is the current version of PHP, where x is referenced as the different version classes of PHP 7. Where currently, many classes are available such as 7.3, 7.3, and 7.4.
The versions crafted prior to PHP 7.2 have reached climax or are being upgraded with security patches. The older version of technology before PHP 7.2 reaches the end of life on November 30, 2020, will not get any security update due to certain reasons like increased liability for site or vulnerability.
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While the PHP 7.3 version will be reaching the end of life on December 6, 2021, it means by 2022, PHP 8 will be available around the corners, as expected. While the contemporary version PHP 7.4 is already envisioned to achieve the end of life on November 8, 2022.
It means WordPress publishers have merely two years to update their PHP versions to PHP8. However, it is critical for WordPress publishers to update PHP 8 before time. Though, the biggest question arises on the compatibility of PHP8 with WordPress version 5.6. Surely, every WordPress programmer would be eager to know how the combination would work out. Let’s understand this aspect of compatibility.
Is WordPress 5.6 Beta Compatible?
In December 2020, at the time of the WordPress 5.6 beta release, WordPress publishers announced that this version is compatible with PHP 8. However, WordPress also cautioned that there might be chances of unpredictable incompatibilities that can coexist.
So, it can be considered as an acknowledgment that core WordPress install may be compatible with PHP 8. However, the chances of incompatibilities can’t be overlooked.
Let’s know how WordPress 5.6 & PHP 8 guidance defined it as:
“WordPress Core aims to be compatible with PHP 8.0 in the 5.6 release (currently scheduled for December 8, 2020).
…Significant effort has been put towards making WordPress 5.6 compatible with PHP 8 on its own, but it is very likely that there are still undiscovered issues remaining.”
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You can’t neglect that “undiscovered issues remains” is not a negative statement with reference to the WordPress 5.6 release. It’s a conscious acknowledgment in programming that there can be unforeseen glitches or oversight that may exist in engineering or testing activity.
Moreover, you can consider it as the chances of the uncertainty of compatibility with the usage of themes and plugins with PHP 8. For expert and top PHP app developers expert and top PHP app developers, it can be a great struggle in web development; It is more to this that can contribute to a setback of WordPress in catering fully functional compatibility with PHP 8.
Here is the WordPress 5.6 official guidance:
“It also should be acknowledged that WordPress is never used in isolation (without any theme or plugins), so WordPress itself being able to run on PHP 8 does not indicate “full” compatibility.
The state of PHP 8 support within the broader ecosystem (plugins, themes, etc.) is impossible to know. For that reason, WordPress 5.6 should be considered “beta compatible” with PHP 8.”
How Is WordPress 5.6 Beta compatible with PHP 8...
There are majorly two final release versions in software development: The Alpha version and the Beta version. The Beta version is the one that developers consider mostly ready-to-be-released versions of any software. Before any final software release, a beta version gets delivered to the users for final testing of features.
So, when WordPress talks about its WordPress 5.6 compatibility with PHP 8, it means it is referring to “Beta version compatibility,” and there may be “n” number of glitches and errors which haven’t been outlined yet.
The major reason for this can be that themes and plugins may not have been tested or been PHP 8 compatible. Moreover, it is not a good notion to update WordPress until all its themes and plugins become PHP 8 compatible.
However, it would be wise to wait for an upgrade even after themes and plugin compatibility assurance with PHP 8. The major reason for this is that PHP 8 is a significant release. While themes and plugins may be recognized as PHP 8 compatible, it is unavoidable that glitches can’t be discovered in PHP 8 compatibility with WordPress 5,6 themes and plugins.
Can PHP 8 Instigate The WordPress Website Break Down?
The major reason for thinking over this aspect is that many old function removals would have taken place in the creation of PHP 8. As per PHP programmers for hire PHP programmers for hire, it means themes and plugins that would still be using those functions will break in PHP 8.
As per the Wordfence report, more than 5,500 plugins are already infused over millions of websites for performing one function, and many of these functions are associated with backward compatibility.
Moreover, Wordfence cautioned that it has identified that create_function is still being used in over 5,5000 WordPress plugins, which also include some extremely well-known plugins having millions of installations.
Moreover, Yoast has also published a report on PHP 8 readiness for WordPress themes and plugins.
Understanding Changes In PHP 8
As per Yoast’s Conclusion, there is a small percentage of plugins; only popular and professionally developed ones have run the test in place. Moreover, a website generally is infused with 19 or 20 plugins. Though, running tests with PHP 8 compatibility can be expected to use a professional development model.
Plugins and themes without tests can cause a problem in running PHP 8. Moreover, PHP 8 will have a number of breaking changes, as per the Yoast report. Here “Breaking changes” means that the result of a function is in error when a theme or plugin using the function isn’t supported in PHP 8.
Conclusion
PHP 8 shows a critical step in the publishing world, especially for frameworks like WordPress. However, security will be the major perk, but adoption can bring a lot of hassle to many services.
Thus, it is highly recommended that you completely test your website or solution before updating it to PHP 8. For updating your website and know more about compatibility, you can connect with a WordPress or PHP website development services provider company with expertise in the latest tech integration.
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