PHP 8.3 release and features

The time of year is fast approaching for PHP developers around the world. We have a new PHP release knocking on the door.

PHP 8.3 RC 1 is now available for testing, and with this release we are able to get a glimps at some of the highlight features coming later in the year.

PHP 8.3 release date

Since 2015, we’ve been able to expect a new PHP release annually, around November / December. PHP 8.3 is no exeption. The team behind the latest release are pushing for a release in November 2023 with supported expected until November 2026.

For the Symfony and Laravel developers out there, you can expect releases of these popular PHP frameworks to follow shortly after the release of PHP 8.3.

Symfony 6.4 is expected to release in November 2023.

Laravel 11 is expected to be released in Q1 2024.

New features in PHP 8.3

The next major release is packed full of bug fixes and new features. Here are some highlight features coming in PHP 8.3.

json_validate in PHP 8.3

PHP 8.3 adds a new function to validate a JSON string by returning true or false.

<?php 

json_validate('[1, 2, 3]'); // returns true
json_validate('[1,2,3'); //returns false

Did you know, searching for json validate in DuckDuckGo opens a JSON Beautifier & Validator above the search results

Typed Class Constants

From PHP 8.3 typed class constants are supported.

<?php 

class MyClass 
{

    const string FOO = 'bar';

}

Other features include:

• Support for rounding negative numbers in number_format()
• A fix for precision loss on formatting decimal integers in number_format()
• Allowing comments between & and a parameter

Little known features in PHP

There are many little known features in PHP. Learn about Numeric Literal Separators which was released way back in PHP 7.4.

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