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"PHP5 Available on Web 0"

Just a quick note to let everyone know that we have just upgraded Web Server 0 to include PHP5 support.

This is expected to be rolled out across all the servers once we have established that the new configuration is stable.

At the current time if your FTP user name ends with the digit 0 then you will be able to use the new support. (eg. sr021220)

If you wish to make use of the new PHP5 support then you simply need to use the extension .php5 rather than the usual .php extension.

Please also note the tougher security that has been installed on these servers, please see this link for more information.

http://freeola.com/support/webspace_php.php#update

If anyone has any problems with the new configuration, please let us know so that we can resolve them before the full server rollout.

The 500 error is due to permission problems.
Due to the upgrade the permissions on you htdocs folder should be set to 755 (the folder own can read, write and execute but the group and user can only read and execute). Unix permissions can be a little confusing so I suggest you read this for a good explanation (an how to change permissions using cuteFTP).
If your scripts worked before then you should not need to change them to use PHP5 as PHP4 is still installed on the servers you just need to check that their permissions are correct (after correcting the permissions on the htdocs folder).
As for formtomail, if you are using Freeola's script and not another 3rd party script just read over the top section here.

Thanks for telling us about these changes, I have been away en vacance.

But I now note that one of my websites on server 0 has vanished without trace only ro return a server 500 error message if you try to find it.

Secondly one of my other sites on server 1, the .php FORM TO MAIL that used to work just fine will not work at all !!!!. I have read the notes at
Link to Freeola status
is it a simple case of changing the old .php extension to .php5 to resume normal service or do I have to change permissions via my ftp (cuteftp) ??????.

I am slightly confused by the permissions from:
The usual permissions for your htdocs folder would be to set them to 755 not 777. etc, unknown territory.

Assistance bienvenue SVP. Dan

Any chance PHP4 will be upgraded to the latest release?

PHP4 is likely to continue to be available indefinitely, one side effect of the increased security on the servers is that is comparitively straightforward to mantain multiple versions of PHP.

Just to confirm, is PHP 5 going to run along-side PHP 4 indefinitely, or will it be replacing it?

Also, will the PHP 5 version be kept up-to-date, as and when the PHP group release new versions?

PHP5 now also available on Web Server 1, so if your user name ends with the last digit 1 you will also be able to make use of PHP5

If you do upload a .htaccess file, please be careful, and test it in a new folder, not your htdocs folder, as once a .htaccess file has been uploaded it can only be removed by support via SSH.

If you do encounter problems with a .htaccess please try uploading a blank .htaccess file as this will usually allow the folder to work again.

Some more info for those who have always coded using PHP4 and were wondering what the differences are with PHP5.

In PHP5 there are some new reserved keywords:

interface
implements
extends
public
private
protected
abstract
clone
try
catch
throw
final
exception
this
php_user_filter

Other changes include :

1. strrpos() and strripos() now use the entire string as a needle.

2. Illegal use of string offsets causes E_ERROR instead of E_WARNING. An example illegal use is: $str = 'abc'; unset($str[0]);.

3. array_merge() was changed to accept only arrays. If a non-array variable is passed, a E_WARNING will be thrown for every such parameter. Be careful because your code may start emitting E_WARNING out of the blue.

4. An object with no properties is no longer considered "empty".

5. In some cases classes must be declared before use. It only happens if some of the new features of PHP 5 (such as interfaces) are used. Otherwise the behaviour is the old.

6. get_class(), get_parent_class() and get_class_methods() now return the name of the classes/methods as they were declared (case-sensitive) which may lead to problems in older scripts that rely on the previous behaviour (the class/method name was always returned lowercased). A possible solution is to search for those functions in all your scripts and use strtolower().

7. This case sensitivity change also applies to the magical predefined constants __CLASS__, __METHOD__, and __FUNCTION__. The values are returned exactly as they're declared (case-sensitive).

8. ip2long() now returns FALSE when an invalid IP address is passed as argument to the function, and no longer -1.

9. If there are functions defined in the included file, they can be used in the main file independent if they are before return() or after. If the file is included twice, PHP 5 issues fatal error because functions were already declared, while PHP 4 doesn't complain about it. It is recommended to use include_once() instead of checking if the file was already included and conditionally return inside the included file.

There are many other changes too and a lot of these are server specific (Windows) and nothing to worry about.

The big thing about PHP5 is its Object Orientated support and the Zend2 engine to speed things up.

PHP 5 changelog

Just a though. I'm not sure how Web 0 is set up but to try and force your scripts to run using PHP5 you can put the following line into a .htaccess file in the folder you are running the scripts from:

AddHandler application/x-httpd-php5 .php

This will force Apache to parse your scripts using PHP5 at runtime.

GWD wrote:
> Thanks for the update.
>
> FYI you have what looks like a typo on in your "19/4/7
> Update" - in points 2 and 3 you mention "not 777 or
> 777" a couple of times?
>
> Also I see on this page, in your example above you say to use
> 777 for permissions - am I missing something here?

Thanks for that, I have now fixed the typo's, the other information is still correct for those web servers, but I have added a link to the update for users on Web Server 0

Thanks for the update.

FYI you have what looks like a typo in your "19/4/7 Update" - in points 2 and 3 you mention "not 777 or 777" a couple of times?

Also I see on this page, in your example above you say to use 777 for permissions - am I missing something here?