[pmwiki-users] RFC: Raising Minimum PHP Version Requirement

[Patrick R. Michaud]

>From my personal perspective (and to be clear Petko is the one who gets the final decision here), I think moving to a PHP 7.0 minimum supported version makes excellent sense.  PHP 7.0 was released in late 2015, so it's already close to ten years old.  Continuing base-level support for older versions is a significant ask.

So, I encourage people to respond to Petko's PITS entry if support <7.0 is really important to them.  We can then look at resolving those specific issues while reducing the overhead of any mainline development.

I also want to thank Petko for having supported PHO 5.3 for so long -- over ten years beyond its end-of-life.  It's great for users to be able to have a lot of latitude in determining their own upgrade paths.

Pm

On Sat, Jun 21, 2025 at 02:30:42PM +0200, Petko Yotov wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> 
> I want to discuss raising the minimum supported PHP version. At the moment,
> we support PHP 5.3 and up, but this range has become increasingly difficult
> to maintain due to modern PHP language features that are incompatible with
> such older versions.
> 
> Why this change is being considered:
> 
> * PHP 5.3 has been EOL (end-of-life) since 2014, and even PHP 5.6 and 7.0
> are long out of support.
> 
> * Supporting older versions like 5.3 significantly increases maintenance
> effort and testing overhead.
> 
> * The vast majority of users (based on feedback and recent issues) are on
> PHP 7.x or 8.x.
> 
> * Pm's server runs PHP 7.0 — which is already a more reasonable lower bound.
> 
> Proposed change:
> I'd like to raise the minimum required PHP version to 5.5 (or ideally 7.0).
> This would allow us to:
> 
> * Use more modern syntax (like short arrays, dereferencing, ?? operator,
> etc.).
> 
> * Progressively drop conditionals and workarounds for ancient versions.
> 
> * More easily integrate new tools and libraries for testing and development.
> 
> Questions for the community:
> 
> * Are there any active wiki administrators still depending on PHP <5.5 (or
> <7.0)?
> 
> * Would raising the requirement to 5.5 be acceptable to everyone? What about
> 7.0?
> 
> * If someone is still on an older PHP version, is there a reason they can't
> upgrade?
> 
> There is a PITS entry with a poll and a discussion:
> 
>   https://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/PITS/01504
> 
> I'd like to get feedback before making the change, so please chime in with
> your thoughts. My goal is to balance moving the project forward while being
> considerate to users who may be on older systems.
> 
> Thanks!
> Petko
> 
> -- 
> If you upgrade :  https://www.pmwiki.org/Upgrades
> 
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