Some very cool features in PHP7

I played around with PHP7 over the weekend and I have to admit it has some very cool things I have wanted PHP to have for a while, and then some. Here are some of them (in no particular order):

• Performance

  PHP7 will increase the performance of PHP scripts by 50-60%. Nuff said.

• Anonymous Classes

  I have always been able to do this in Java where I can just define a required object and pass it along.
  Now, you can do the same in PHP (I know that it is a double-edged sword and can leave your code un-organized
  if not used wisely). Here is an example:

  addInsertListener(new Class implements DbInsertObserver {
  	public function log($sql)
  	{
  		// log here 
  	}
  });
  
  
  		

  This can be pretty useful if all you are troubleshooting a production-only issue. Ideally, your testing
  environment will be exactly like your production environment. And, you are able to re-produce every production
  bug in QA but real world is rarely meets ideal standards. We, now, have anonymous classes to help.

• Scalar type-hinting and Return type hinting

  Ever since PHP introduced type-hinting, I have been using it everywhere I can. It helps with static analysis of code
  and helps prevent bugs (although I love the freedom that comes with PHP not being a statically typed language).

  Note: like previous versions of PHP, PHP7 will not force its user (the PHP developer) to type-hint anything. So, old scripts
  will still work.

• Removal of date.timezone warning

  Every time you use a date method, PHP would throw a warning if you didn't have a default timezone set in php.ini
  or in your code (using date_timezone_default_set()). PHP would default to UTC and throw the warning. This warning
  has been removed in PHP7. Good riddance.

• Null Coalesce Operator

  Also called the isset ternary operator, gives you a more convenient way of ... doing this:

  // Before PHP7
  $someVar = isset($someArray['some_key']) ? $someArray['some_key'] : 'default value';
  
  // In PHP7
  $someVar = $someArray['some_key'] ?? 'default value';
  
  		

There are more cool and useful features I have not mentioned here. You can read about them here: https://wiki.php.net/rfc