{"id":16264,"date":"2022-12-08T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-12-08T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newblog.siteground.com\/en\/?p=16264"},"modified":"2026-05-13T06:58:29","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T06:58:29","slug":"php-8-2-release-candidate-on-siteground-servers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.siteground.com\/blog\/php-8-2-release-candidate-on-siteground-servers\/","title":{"rendered":"PHP 8.2 Is Now Stable and Available on SiteGround Servers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

PHP 8.4: Stay Updated!<\/strong>\u00a0\ud83d\ude80 Check out our latest blog post to explore the newest features and enhancements in PHP 8.4<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s that time again! Time for the Santa ElePHPant to visit all the good little PHP developers around the world and shower them with new goodies that make it easier for them to build the web.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As of this writing, PHP 8.2 is in Release Candidate 1 (RC1) status. We are in the late stages of development and bug fixing for this version and you can tell because forward looking web hosts like SiteGround are now making the RC builds available for their clients to test with. (Did you see the word TEST there? For those who don\u2019t know what that means, it means NOT IN PRODUCTION!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So let\u2019s take a look at some of the new presents that Santa ElePHPant is bringing us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/span>New Goodies<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

First up, let\u2019s take a look at a few of the new features that will be of interest to PHP developers. This is not an exhaustive list of the new goodies in Santa ElePHPant\u2019s bag. It\u2019s more a short list of the things I think the majority of PHP developers will be interested in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

readonly <\/strong>classes<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In PHP 8.1 we got readonly<\/strong> properties for classes. This was a great leap forward for a lot of projects. However, there is still a small hole that needed to be plugged, clases. Yes, you can make every typed property in a class as read only and you are good to go, but honestly, that\u2019s a lot of typing and if we know anything, we know that developers are lazy. So instead, in PHP 8.2 we can mark an entire class as readonly<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

readonly class MyClass {\n    public int $myProp;\n    public string $myOtherProp;\n    public __construct(string $myOtherProp, int $myProp) \n    {\n        $this->myProp = $myProp;\n        $this->myOtherProp = $myOtherProp;\n    }\n}<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
\n
<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Here we have a class defined as readonly<\/strong>. We have 2 properties of the class and both of them are inherently readonly. The readonly rules from PHP 8.1 still apply. You can initialize the property only once, after that it is set. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
$myObj = new MyClass(\u2018Cal was here\u2019,42);<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, once they are initialized, they are now immutable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
$myObj->myProp = \u2018Cal is no longer here\u2019;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\/\/ Fatal Error: Uncaught Error: Cannot modify readonly property MyClass::myProp<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
One other behavior of the readonly class is that properties cannot be dynamically added to the class, ever. Below we talk about deprecating Dynamic properties and how that\u2019s a good thing. There is even an annotation that allows you to override this. However, if you mark a class as readonly<\/strong>, then it cannot be overridden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Constants in Traits<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Traits have been with us in PHP since PHP 5.4. They have long been the language\u2019s answer to \u201ccomposition over inheritance\u201d. Now traits are getting an interesting new feature, the ability to define constants in a trait.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
trait MyTrait {<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
    private const MY_CONSTANT = 42;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
}<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, if your trait uses a constant, you can define it in the trait and not have to remember to define it in each class that uses the trait.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
trait MyTrait {<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
    private const MY_CONSTANT = 42;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
    public function meaningOfLife() : int<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
    {<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
        return self::MY_CONSTANT;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
    }<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
}<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
class MyClass {<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
    use MyTrait;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
}<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
$myObj = new MyClass();<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
echo $myObj->meaningOfLife(); \/\/ prints 42<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Like everything in life, there are a few rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Traits can define class constants. If a class uses that trait it can also define the same class constant as long as both the visibility and value are exactly the same<\/strong>. So the example above works but the one below will trigger a fatal error<\/p>\n\n\n\n
trait MyTrait {<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
    private const MY_CONSTANT = 42;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
    public function meaningOfLife() : int<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
    {<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
        return self::MY_CONSTANT;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
    }<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
}<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
class MyClass {<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
    use MyTrait;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
    public const MY_CONSTANT = 42;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
}<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Still, even with the rules that you have to follow, this is a real step forward. Traits are a great way to share code between classes and now they are even more self-contained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Random Extension 5.x + Random Extension Improvement<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The original PHP random number generator is still in the base code. It\u2019s never been great and it\u2019s absolutely useless for cryptographic uses. In PHP 7, we got a couple new functions, random_int()<\/strong> and random_bytes()<\/strong>. They went a long way to fix the problems but under the hood, they are just interfaces to the native OS\u2019s random number generator. At the time this was a good solution but the problem is it\u2019s a slow one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now with PHP 8.2 we get not only an entirely new Random number generator, it is built into PHP,  and we get an extensible object oriented interface to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is actually two different RFCs that I\u2019m lumping together. After the first one \u201cRandom Extension 5.x\u201d was voted on and passed, it was discovered that there was a few issues with it. A second RFC, \u201cRandom Extension Improvement\u201d,  was prepared and voted on to fix the issues found with the first one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The end result is a new set of classes that give us better pseudo-random numbers in PHP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While we are actually getting several new random number generators (RNG), for simplicity I\u2019ll discuss the new Random\\Engine\\Secure<\/strong> class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
$engine = new Random\\Engine\\Secure();<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
$randomString = $engine->generate(); \/\/ a random binary string<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
echo bin2hex($randomString); <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now if we want to do something like sort an array, we need one of the new Randomizer objects. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
$randomizer = new Random\\Randomizer($engine);<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
$items = range(1, 10);<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
$randomizedItems = $randomizer->shuffleArray($items);<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
print_r($randomizedItems);<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now in the above example, we used the Secure engine. The secure engine does not accept a seed and will always generate a non-reproducible string. The engines that allow you to specify a seed will produce the same results each time if you use the same seed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Randomizer class also provides several other methods that are really what PHP developers are looking for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n