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J Cellini
Inspiring
April 6, 2008
Question

test page for php 5 compatibility

  • April 6, 2008
  • 2 replies
  • 671 views
Does anyone know of a web page that can test if a PHP web site is compatible with PHP 5? I just inherited a web site for a company whose hosting company is upgrading from PHP4 to PHP5 and I want to make sure that it's compatible. I am aware that there is little difference between the two versions, but still I would like to check for any errors.
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2 replies

April 7, 2008
It sounds like accessing your current web pages is the test. If your pages aren't compatible, you wouldn't be able to access them now using your browser.
Inspiring
April 6, 2008
JCellini wrote:
> Does anyone know of a web page that can test if a PHP web site is compatible
> with PHP 5? I just inherited a web site for a company whose hosting company is
> upgrading from PHP4 to PHP5 and I want to make sure that it's compatible. I am
> aware that there is little difference between the two versions, but still I
> would like to check for any errors.

Wonderful idea though that sounds, it's impossible. PHP is a server-side
language. It's processed entirely on the server, so the only way to test
for compatibility is to upload the site to a PHP 5 server, and try it out.

If the hosting company is keen to preserve the business of its clients,
it should offer a temporary staging server for you to test the site
before it upgrades. The differences between PHP 4 and 5 are minimal, in
the sense that virtually all PHP 4 code runs on PHP 5 without problem.
The area where you need to be careful is if the site uses
object-oriented code (classes), because the OOP implementation in PHP 5
is completely different. PHP 4 classes do run on PHP 5, but might not
produce the expected result.

All support for PHP 4 comes to an end in four months' time, so it's
definitely time to move.

--
David Powers, Adobe Community Expert
Author, "The Essential Guide to Dreamweaver CS3" (friends of ED)
Author, "PHP Solutions" (friends of ED)
http://foundationphp.com/