Intro to PHP 8: What’s New?

Let’s break down the most important changes.

Performance Boost

PHP 8 also features the Just-In-Time (JIT) compiler that dramatically speeds up performance for CPU-bound work.

• Not always visible in standard web applications.
• Extremely useful for heavy calculations, scientific calculations, or machine learning tasks.

New Language Features

Union Types

You can now specify multiple possible types for a function parameter, property, or return type.

function calculateTotal(int|float $price): int|float {
    return $price * 1.12;
}

Named Arguments

Arguments can be passed to functions by name instead of position, making code more readable.

function createUser(string $name, int $age, bool $active = true) { ... }

createUser(age: 25, name: "Ben");

Attributes (Annotations)

Rather than PHPDoc comments, you can now add structured metadata through attributes.

#[Route("/home")]
class HomeController { }

Constructor Property Promotion

You can declare and initialize class properties directly in the constructor.

class User {
    public function __construct(
        private string $name,
        private int $age
    ) {}
}

Match Expression

A contemporary alternative to switch, shorter and safer.

$status = 200;

$message = match ($status) {
    200 => 'OK',
    404 => 'Not Found',
    default => 'Unknown',
};

Nullsafe Operator

Avoid null errors with a safe operator.

$username = $user?->profile?->username;

Type System & Error Handling Enhancements

• Static return type: methods can return static for late static binding.

• Mixed type: a new type that can accept any value.

• Stricter type checks: more warnings and fatal errors rather than silent failures.

Deprecations and Removals

PHP 8 tidied up legacy features:

• Removed legacy, deprecated functions and extensions.

• Resources moved to objects (e.g., GD, Curl).

• Removed support for real, magic_quotes, and other legacy quirks.

Overall Impact

• Cleaner, more expressive syntax.

• Improved runtime performance.

• Tighter typing system.

• Simpler integration with contemporary frameworks (Laravel, Symfony, Drupal).

PHP 8 makes PHP faster, safer, and more developer-friendly, pushing it closer to modern programming languages in terms of features and performance.