PHP 8.2 for IBM i Now Available — PHP 7.4 Frozen
It’s time to upgrade your PHP! If it seems like you just heard this from us, you’re not wrong.
By gradually deprecating features and techniques that no longer represent best practices, PHP nudges developers to keep their applications current, ready to address new business needs.
Simplify with Subsystems
A major differentiator of the IBM i operating system is the use of subsystems to separate workloads, often for managing memory and optimizing performance. While those are still valid reasons for separating work into multiple subsystems, today’s large memory sizes and fast processors reduce the need to optimize performance in this way.
In this article, I’ll explain how subsystems can make today’s web-oriented application workloads much easier to manage. Read more →
ibm_db2 & ODBC Run Side-by-Side in Seiden PHP+
In the past, PHP on IBM i implementations could not load both the classic database extensions (ibm_db2 / PDO_IBM) and the ODBC extensions (odbc / PDO_ODBC) at the same time. An error such as “ibm_db2 GetDiagRec failed” would result.
In July 2021, we overcame those limitations in Seiden PHP+. Now the classic PHP database extensions can run side-by-side with ODBC.
To our knowledge, Seiden PHP+ is the only IBM i PHP that can load all the Db2 extensions at the same time. Therefore, when you install Seiden PHP+, all the Db2 extensions (ibm_db2, PDO_IBM, odbc, and PDO_ODBC) can be enabled by default.
PHP 8.1 Released for IBM i
Good news everyone! In cadence with the release of PHP 8.1 by PHP.net last week, companies running PHP on IBM i can now download PHP 8.1 for use with their own applications.
According to this briefing with IBM i’s Open Source Business Architect, Jesse Gorzinski, staying current with PHP is a best practice for many reasons—for security and security audits, to fix deprecated code before you dig a huge technical debt hole, to keep your PHP environment running smoothly, and so on.
I’ll cover how to access the IBM i version of PHP 8.1 later in this post. First, though, let’s survey our favorite enhancements in this new release. We’re a big fan of PHP’s own release notes, so we recommend that you read them.
Set Up PHP Servers in Seconds with Siteadd
UPDATE: CommunityPlus+ PHP is now known as Seiden PHP. A modest but powerful utility “stole the show” during last week’s Lunch & Learn with Alan Seiden and Paul Tuohy. Packaged with CommunityPlus+ PHP, Seiden Group’s siteadd creates an Apache HTTP instance and a FastCGI configuration customized for your needs. In seconds, you’ll be able to launch a sample PHP page to test your new web instance.