Updated Version of PHP 8.3.0

PHP 8.3 introduces several new features, optimizations, and deprecations that enhance the language’s functionality, performance, and security. Here’s a detailed overview of the updates:

1. Readonly Classes

• Readonly Keyword: PHP 8.2 introduced readonly properties, and PHP 8.3 extends this concept to entire classes. Declaring a class as readonly means all its properties are automatically readonly, ensuring they can only be initialized once.

• readonly class Config {

  public string $host;

  public int $port;

  public function __construct(string $host, int $port) {

    $this->host = $host;

    $this->port = $port;

  }

}

1. json_validate() Function

• New Function: json_validate() is introduced to check if a string is a valid JSON without decoding it, which can be useful for scenarios where you need to validate JSON input.

$json = ‘{“name”: “John”, “age”: 30}’;

if (json_validate($json)) {

  echo “Valid JSON!”;

} else {

  echo “Invalid JSON!”;

}

New Date and Time Functions

• PHP 8.3 brings enhancements to date and time handling, such as:
• timezone_from_offset(): This function returns a timezone object based on a UTC offset.
• Enhanced timezone handling: Improved accuracy and new functions for dealing with timezones.

$timezone = timezone_from_offset(7200); // UTC+2

echo $timezone->getName(); // Outputs: Etc/GMT-2