Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2005-01-28 17:30:45 - Graham Ellis
Upgrading from PHP 4 to PHP 5
Upgrading from MySQL 4.0 to MySQL 4.1
PHP5 was "production released" last July, and MySQL 4.1 became a "GA" release which is their equivalent later in the year. In both cases, the new release is not 100% "plug and play" compatible with the old, and at present most users are still running PHP4 and MySQL 4.0 or even 3.23.
I've been running a MySQL course the last couple of days and even though the customers are using the older versions, I'm showing them the new too and giving some thoughts / ideas as to how they should work so that their current systems will be easily upgraded in the future.
Things particularly effecting the upgrade of PHP / MySQL systems:
- PHP5 object model slightly different to PHP4 model
- MySQL client libraries no longer bundled with PHP5; new Mysqli functions available in their place
- MySQL login password scheme changed at MySQL 4.1
Note - LOTS of lovely new facilities; here I've just noted issues that may be "gotcha"s when transferring code.
For newcomers to PHP and MySQL, the changes between the versions are small enough for our courses to cover both, with you doing your practicals on whichever setup is most appropriate. If you're an existing PHP / MySQL site and looking to plan your upgrade route, let us know and we can provide you with a day or two of training covering the aspects above and other things such as templated queries, SQLite, XML handling and the PHP5 object model.