> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://developer.upsun.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Welcome to the world, PHP 7.2!

> Learn about the new features and improvements in PHP 7.2.0, including better performance and security enhancements. Try PHP 7.2.0 on Platform.sh with ease.

export const PostMeta = ({data = {}}) => {
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    const github = entry.github || null;
    const linkedin = entry.linkedin || null;
    const url = github ? `https://github.com/${github}` : linkedin || null;
    const avatarUrl = github ? `https://github.com/${github}.png?size=64` : null;
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      url,
      avatarUrl
    };
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    year: 'numeric',
    month: 'long',
    day: 'numeric'
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    "aaron-dudenhofer": {
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      "name": "Aaron Porter"
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    "adriaan-odendaal": {
      "name": "Adriaan Odendaal"
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    "ajmal": {
      "name": "Ajmal Siddiqui"
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      "name": "Antonis Kalipetis"
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    "alexander-varwijk": {
      "name": "Alexander Varwijk"
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    "alicia-bevilacqua": {
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      "name": "Amelie Deguerry"
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      "name": "Ana Cidre",
      "linkedin": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/ana-cidre"
    },
    "andoni": {
      "name": "Andoni Auzmendi"
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      "name": "Andrei (Alex) Taranu",
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    "antoine-crochet-damais": {
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      "name": "Augustin Delaporte",
      "linkedin": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/augustindelaporte/"
    },
    "branislav-bujisic": {
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    "ceelolulu": {
      "name": "Celeste van der Watt"
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    "chris-yates": {
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    "corey-dockendorf": {
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    "crell": {
      "name": "Crell"
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    "damz": {
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    "dan-morrison": {
      "name": "Dan Morrison"
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    "davidbonachera": {
      "name": "David Bonachera",
      "github": "davidbonachera",
      "linkedin": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidbonachera"
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    "dereliahmet1": {
      "name": "Ahmet Faruk Dereli"
    },
    "devicezero": {
      "name": "Jonas Kröger",
      "github": "devicezero",
      "linkedin": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonaskroeger/"
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    "doug-goldberg": {
      "name": "Doug Goldberg"
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    "duncan-naves": {
      "name": "Duncan Naves",
      "github": "duncannaves",
      "linkedin": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/duncan-naves-a94423aa"
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    "erika-bustamante": {
      "name": "Erika Bustamante"
    },
    "fabpot": {
      "name": "Fabien Potencier"
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      "name": "Florent Huck",
      "github": "flovntp",
      "linkedin": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/florenthuck"
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      "name": "Fred Plais"
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    "gauthier-garnier": {
      "name": "Gauthier Garnier"
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    "gilzow": {
      "name": "Paul Gilzow"
    },
    "gmoigneu": {
      "name": "Guillaume Moigneu",
      "github": "gmoigneu",
      "linkedin": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/guillaumemoigneu/"
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    "gregqualls": {
      "name": "Greg Qualls"
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    "guguss": {
      "name": "Augustin Delaporte"
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    "haylee-millar": {
      "name": "Haylee Millar"
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    "ivana-kotur": {
      "name": "Ivana Kotur"
    },
    "jackrabbithanna": {
      "name": "Mark Hanna"
    },
    "jared-wright": {
      "name": "Jared Wright",
      "github": "jww-sh",
      "linkedin": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaredwaynewright"
    },
    "jessica-orozco": {
      "name": "Jessica Orozco"
    },
    "joey-stanford": {
      "name": "Joey Stanford"
    },
    "john-grubb": {
      "name": "John Grubb"
    },
    "jonas-kruger": {
      "name": "Jonas Kruger"
    },
    "kathryn-frazer": {
      "name": "Kathryn Frazer"
    },
    "kemiojo": {
      "name": "Kemi Elizabeth Ojogbede"
    },
    "kieronsambrook-smith": {
      "name": "Kieronsambrook Smith"
    },
    "laurent-arnoud": {
      "name": "Laurent Arnoud"
    },
    "letoya-boyne": {
      "name": "Letoya Boyne"
    },
    "lolautruche": {
      "name": "Jérôme Vieilledent"
    },
    "lyly-lepinay": {
      "name": "Lyly Lepinay"
    },
    "manauwar-alam": {
      "name": "Manauwar Alam"
    },
    "marc-antoine-porri": {
      "name": "Marc Antoine Porri"
    },
    "maria-antinkaapo": {
      "name": "Maria Antinkaapo"
    },
    "maria-de-anton": {
      "name": "Maria De Anton"
    },
    "mark-dorison": {
      "name": "Mark Dorison"
    },
    "markus-hausammann": {
      "name": "Markus Hausammann"
    },
    "mary-thomas": {
      "name": "Mary Thomas"
    },
    "mathias-bolt-lesniak": {
      "name": "Mathias Bolt Lesniak"
    },
    "mathieu-strauch": {
      "name": "Mathieu Strauch"
    },
    "matthias-van-woensel": {
      "name": "Matthias Van Woensel",
      "linkedin": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthias-van-woensel-267a069"
    },
    "michael-sharp": {
      "name": "Michael Sharp"
    },
    "mupsi": {
      "name": "Marine Gandy"
    },
    "natalie-harper": {
      "name": "Natalie Harper"
    },
    "ngommenginger": {
      "name": "Nicolas Gommenginger",
      "linkedin": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolas-gommenginger"
    },
    "nicholas-bennison": {
      "name": "Nicholas Bennison"
    },
    "nicholas-vahalik": {
      "name": "Nicholas Vahalik"
    },
    "nick-hardiman": {
      "name": "Nick Hardiman"
    },
    "nickanderegg": {
      "name": "Nickanderegg"
    },
    "nicolas-grekas": {
      "name": "Nicolas Grekas",
      "github": "nicolas-grekas",
      "linkedin": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolasgrekas/"
    },
    "niti-malwade": {
      "name": "Niti Malwade"
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    "ori-pekelman": {
      "name": "Ori Pekelman"
    },
    "otavio-santana": {
      "name": "Otavio Santana"
    },
    "palwandi": {
      "name": "Pawan Alwandi",
      "github": "pawpy",
      "linkedin": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/pawanalwandi"
    },
    "patrick-boest": {
      "name": "Patrick Boest"
    },
    "patrick-dawkins": {
      "name": "Patrick Dawkins",
      "github": "pjcdawkins",
      "linkedin": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrickdawkins"
    },
    "patrick-klima": {
      "name": "Patrick Klima"
    },
    "pjcdawkins": {
      "name": "Pjcdawkins"
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    "prineet-kaurbhurji": {
      "name": "Prineet Kaurbhurji"
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    "quentin-sinig": {
      "name": "Quentin Sinig"
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    "ralt": {
      "name": "Florian Margaine",
      "github": "ralt",
      "linkedin": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/florian-margaine-43971136"
    },
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      "name": "Ramanathanramakrishnamurthy"
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    "remi-lejeune": {
      "name": "Rémi Lejeune"
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    "ribel": {
      "name": "Taras Kruts"
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    "robert-douglass": {
      "name": "Robert Douglass"
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    "rudy-weber": {
      "name": "Rudy Weber"
    },
    "ryan-hicks": {
      "name": "Ryan Hicks"
    },
    "sabri-helal": {
      "name": "Sabri Helal"
    },
    "savannah-bergeron": {
      "name": "Savannah Bergeron"
    },
    "shannon-vettes": {
      "name": "Shannon Vettes"
    },
    "shawn-ogasawara": {
      "name": "Shawn Ogasawara",
      "linkedin": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawn-ogasawara-83a9a0/"
    },
    "shawna-spoor": {
      "name": "Shawna Spoor"
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      "name": "Shedrack Akintayo"
    },
    "simon-ruggier": {
      "name": "Simon Ruggier"
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    "sophie-van-der-kindere": {
      "name": "Sophie Van Der Kindere"
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      "name": "Stefanos Thampis"
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    "stephen-weinberg": {
      "name": "Stephen Weinberg"
    },
    "sukhman-virk": {
      "name": "Sukhman Virk"
    },
    "sumaira-nazir": {
      "name": "Sumaira Nazir"
    },
    "sumer": {
      "name": "Sümer Cip"
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      "name": "Syed Raza"
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    "tamara-bacchia": {
      "name": "Tamara Bacchia"
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    "theosakamg": {
      "name": "Mickael Gaillard",
      "github": "theosakamg"
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    "tom-helmer-hansen": {
      "name": "Tom Helmer Hansen"
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    "tylermills": {
      "name": "Tyler Mills"
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    "upsun": {
      "name": "Upsun"
    },
    "veronika-tolkachova": {
      "name": "Veronika Tolkachova",
      "linkedin": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/veronika-tolkachova-169167a2"
    },
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      "name": "Vince Parker"
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      "name": "Vincenzo Russo"
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      "github": "vrobert78",
      "linkedin": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/vincent-robert-498a883"
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      "name": "Yuriy Babenko"
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    "yuriy-gerasimov": {
      "name": "Yuriy Gerasimov"
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                    {avatarUrl && <img src={avatarUrl} alt={name} className="post-meta-avatar" />}
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    return url ? <a key={slug} href={url} target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" className="post-meta-author">
                    {inner}
                  </a> : <span key={slug} className="post-meta-author">{inner}</span>;
  })}
            </div>}
          {authors.length > 0 && formattedDate && <span className="post-meta-separator" aria-hidden="true">·</span>}
          {formattedDate && <span className="post-meta-date">{formattedDate}</span>}
        </div>}
      {image && <img src={image} alt="" className="post-meta-image" aria-hidden="true" />}
    </div>;
};

<PostMeta data={{ author: ["crell"], date: "2017-11-30", image: "/images/posts/unknown/welcome-to-the-world-php-72/welcome-to-the-world-php-72.webp" }} />

<Tip>
  This post was originally published on the Platform.sh blog and reflects information from the time of publication.
</Tip>

Today the PHP development team [released the latest version](https://php.net/archive/2017.php#id2017-11-30-1) of the web's favorite language, PHP 7.2.0. Huge thanks and congratulations to everyone that worked on it, especially release managers Sara Golemon and Remi Collet.

You can already try it out on Platform.sh, of course.

### Better performance

Unlike PHP 7.0 and 7.1, 7.2 focused mainly on internal improvements rather than user-facing languages features. Most notably, many of the changes to the engine and syntax that have been made in recent versions allowed the PHP team to optimize the engine even further. It's not as big of a performance boost as PHP 7.0 was, but 7.2 should still be measurably faster than PHP 7.1. In fact, a few optimizations only work if you're using scalar types for parameters as it allows the engine to make some type-specific optimizations. Typing is good for you.

### Securing PHP

The other major improvements involve security. For those using `password_hash()` to manage passwords (which is everyone, or really should be), a new, more-secure hash algorithm has been made available: Argon2. The existing BCrypt algorithm is still available, and is still the default, but for those who want to be forward looking `PASSWORD_ARGON2` is now an option as well. For example:

```bash theme={null}
echo password_hash("secret_password", PASSWORD_ARGON2I);

```

More significantly, the security library libsodium has now been bundled with PHP, replacing the long-derided mcrypt. Sodium is a library for writing encryption workflows more complex than simple password hashing without having to "roll your own" encryption API, a process that is extremely easy to get wrong. The libsodium API allows for "secure by default" API call for signing and validating encrypted messages. For example:

```
$alice_kp = sodium_crypto_sign_keypair();
$alice_sk = sodium_crypto_sign_secretkey($alice_kp);
$alice_pk = sodium_crypto_sign_publickey($alice_kp);

$message = 'This is a test message.';
$signature = sodium_crypto_sign_detached($message, $alice_sk);
if (sodium_crypto_sign_verify_detached($signature, $message, $alice_pk)) {
    echo 'OK', PHP_EOL;
} else {
    throw new Exception('Invalid signature');
}

```

If you need to use an older version of PHP but still want to use libsodium, there's a [polyfill library](https://github.com/paragonie/sodium%5Fcompat) available (which provided the example above, as well).

### A grab-bag of syntax

For the syntax fans there's still a bit of new syntax available. Most notably, there's a new `object` type hint that will [match](https://platform.sh/blog/php-80-feature-focus-match-expressions/) any object of any class but disallow primitives or arrays. Like any other type hint it works on both parameters and return values.

It's also now possible to "widen" a parameter type. In previous versions, if an interface or parent class specified a type for a parameter or return value then all subclasses were required to have the exact same type hint. As of PHP 7.2, it's possible to omit the type for a parameter in a child class, allowing more variable types to pass. That still respects the Liskov Substitution Principle so it's safe to do and offers more flexibility, especially for legacy code that is untyped. It's also possible to "narrow" a return type by adding a return type in a subclass when the parent had none. Ironically that makes PHP 7.2 more backward compatible with PHP 5.x code than previous versions of PHP 7!

There's a handful of other improvements, too. The [PHP 7.2 Upgrading guide](https://php.net/manual/en/migration72.php) has a complete list.

### Give it a try

Sound interesting? It's of course available on Platform.sh already, and trivially easy to experiment with. In your [.platform.app.yaml](https://docs.platform.sh/overview/yaml/what-is-yaml.html) file, simply change the "0" or "1" on your `type` line to a "2":

```yaml theme={null}
type: "php:7.2"

```

Commit and push. It really is that easy!

And of course you probably should try it in a branch before deploying to production. That's easy, too.

Congratulations, ElePHPants!