test page for php 5 compatibility

[J Cellini]

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.

[Newsgroup_User]

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/

[Squonk64]

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.