PHP 4.0 Beta 2 released

The PHP development group is pleased to announce the second public Beta of 
PHP 4.0.  This release features a significant amount of bug fixes, and is a 
big step towards making PHP 4.0 a stable development platform.  In addition 
to bug fixes in the language engine itself, many modules have been checked 
and updated to be PHP 4.0 compatible, so the number of scripts that will 
successfully execute is significantly larger than that of Beta 1.  Finally, 
the Apache .conf/.htaccess conversion scripts supplied with Beta 1 have 
been fixed and improved, so the transition from PHP 3.x should be smoother.

All users of PHP 4.0 Beta 1 are encouraged to upgrade to Beta 2 as soon as 
they can find the time to do so.  We also encourage all serious PHP users 
to begin playing with PHP 4.0, see how well it performs for their needs, 
and report any problems they encounter.  Our opinion about moving to PHP 
4.0 as a general rule hasn't changed - you shouldn't use it on production 
web sites unless you ensure first, and off-line (i.e. on a different port 
or a different box) that your web site performs normally;  However, 
everybody is encouraged to test it, and use it assuming it works well for them.

PHP 4.0 Beta 2 is available from http://www.php.net/version4/ .  It is 
currently only available in source format;  Win32 binaries with 
instructions on how to use them, as well as several DLLs for popular 
modules will be posted this Wednesday (or sooner).

A detailed list of changes since Beta 1 follows:

August 9 1999, Version 4.0 Beta 2
- Fixed a problem when sending HTTP/1.x header lines using header() (Zeev)
- Win32 builds now include the ODBC module built-in (Zeev)
- Fixed SYSV-SHM interface (Thies).
- Updated hyperwave module, made it thread safe
- Updated pdflib module, version 0.6 of pdflib no longer supported
- Updated fdf module
- Built-in phpinfo() links are now turned off by default.  They can be turned
   on using the allow_builtin_links INI directive (Zeev)
- Changed phpinfo() to list modules that have no info function (Zeev)
- Modified array_walk() function so that the userland callback is passed
   a key and possible user data in addition to the value (Andrey)
- Fixed ldap_search(), ldap_read() and ldap_list() (Zeev)
- Fixed Apache information in phpinfo() ([email protected])
- Improved register_shutdown_function() - you may now supply arguments that
   will be passed to the shutdown function (Zeev)
- Improved call_user_func() and call_user_method() - they now support passing
   arguments by reference (Zeev)
- Fixed usort() and uksort() (Zeev)
- Fixed md5() in the Apache module (Thies)
- Introduced build process for dynamic modules (Stig)
- Improved ISAPI module to supprt large server variables (Zeev)
- Imported PHP 3.0 fixes for problem with PHP as a dynamic module and Redhat
   libc2.1 in zlib module (Stefan)
- Fixed sybase_fetch_object() (Zeev)
- Made the IMAP module work with PHP 4.0 (Zeev)
- Fixed a problem with include()/require() of URLs (Sascha, Zeev)
- Fixed a bug in implode() that caused it to corrupt its arguments (Zeev)
- Added get_class($obj), get_parent_class($obj) and method_exists($obj,"name")
   (Andi & Zeev)
- Fixed various inheritance problems (Andi & Zeev, Zend library)
- Children now inherit their parent's constructor, if they do not supply a
   constructor of their own.
- Fixed runtime inheritence of classes (parent methods/properties were
   overriding their children) (Zeev, Zend library)
- Fixed backwards incompatibility with the "new" operator (Andi, Zend library)
- Fixed bugs in uksort() and ksort() sort ordering (Andrey)
- Fixed a memory leak when using assignment-op operators with lvalue of type
   string (Zeev, Zend library)
- Fixed a problem in inheritence from classes that are defined in include()d
   files (Zeev, Zend library)
- Fixed a problem with the PHP error handler that could result in a crash
   on certain operating systems (Zeev)
- Apache php_flag values only recognized 'On' (case sensitive) - changed
   to case insensitive (Zeev)
- Fixed a memory leak with switch statement containing return statements
   (Andi & Zeev, Zend library)
- Fixed a crash problem in switch statements that had a string offset
   as a conditional (Andi & Zeev, Zend library)
- Imported PHP 3.0 fixes for rand() and mt_rand() (Rasmus)
- Added function entries for strip_tags() and similar_text() (Andrey)
- Fixed a bug in WDDX that would cause a crash if a number was passed in
   instead of a variable name (Andrey)
- Ported strtotime() function from PHP 3.0 (Andrey)
- Merged in gdttf stuff from php3 (Sascha)
- buildconf now checks your installation (Stig)
- XML module now built dynamically with --with-xml=shared (Stig)
- Added a check for freetype.h - fixed build on RedHat 6.0 (Zeev)
- Fixed array_walk() to work in PHP 4.0 (Andrey)
- Ported all remaining date() format options from PHP 3.0 (Andrey)
- $php_errormsg now works (Andrey)
- Added locale support for Perl Compatible Regexp functions (Andrey)
- Informix module ported (Danny)
- Removed --with-shared-apache (Sascha)
- Added patch for reverse lookup table in base64_decode (Sascha)
   Submitted by [email protected]
- Merged in php3 version of str_replace (Sascha)
- Added DBA module (Sascha)
- Added session id detection within REQUEST_URI (Sascha)
- Merged in HP-UX/ANSI compatibility switch from php3 (Sascha)
- Fixed rpath handling for utilitites built during Apache build (Sascha)
- Added missing E_ error level constants (Zeev, Zend library)
- Fixed a bug in sending multiple HTTP Cookies under Apache (Zeev)
- Fixed implicit connect on the MySQL, mSQL, PostgreSQL and Sybase
   modules (Zeev)
- Gave PHP 4.0's SNMP extension all the functionality of PHP 3.0.12 (SteveL)


Zeev