[PHP-DEV] RFC: testing php8.4 against libxml-rs (memory-safe libxml2) - Debian ITP #1146060

Riaan de Beer <[email protected]> Sat, 29 Aug 2026 16:43:40 +0100

Newsgroups	gmane.comp.php.devel
Message-ID	<CAEAwgVTqDhbYZc8ch-fXPOkMO1iecWv0Ft1R0Tf8WBRhMPJGqg@mail.gmail.com>

Hi,

libxml2 is unmaintained since Dec 2025. I built libxml-rs - native-Rust
reimplementation, C ABI compatible:

https://github.com/infinityabundance/libxml-rs
Debian ITP: https://bugs.debian.org/1146060

Phase 10 done: xmllint + xmlcatalog byte-identical to libxml2 2.15.3 /
libxslt 1.1.47, 1110 tests, xsltproc corpus identical.

Would you be open to a test build?

  LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/path/to/libxml-rs/target/debug \
  php -m | grep -E 'dom|xml|xsl'

Or: https://github.com/sparklemotion/nokogiri/discussions/3677
same ask for Nokogiri/lxml.

Targeting experimental as alternative provider, not default.

Best,
Riaan
https://github.com/infinityabundance