Remi has announced the release of the remi-php7 repo, available for Fedora ≥ 21 and Enterprise Linux ≥ 6.

Current version is PHP 7.0.0beta2 with about 25 extensions which are already compatible. This repository provides development versions which are not suitable for production usage. [...] As for other remi's repositories, it is disabled by default, so the update is an administrator choice.

This repository can be installed just like other similar remi repos via the "yum" command to add the repository to the list of available ones, then another to upgrade the PHP installation.

Rob Allen has shared a few Phing tips in the latest post to his site today. Phing is a PHP-based automation tools most popularly used for the deployment and configuration of PHP applications.

Following on from my last post, here's a few other Phing things that I've found helps me.

He shares three short but useful tips:

• Hiding targets from Phing -l
• Main target vs subtarget
• List available targets by default

Each tip includes the XML markup you'll need to make it functional. You can find out more about Phing and what it's capable of on its website.

Chris Hartjes has released his book, "Refactoring Legacy Applications Using CakePHP", and has made it available for purchase on its own site.

Can you believe it? My book is done and available for you to purchase. Visit the site for the book for more details. When I started working on this book I did have an idea of how much, you know, WORK it was actually going to be. With some help from a few CakePHP gurus I got all my code tight and working the way it was supposed to. I guess it’s only natural that I should be happy with the way things have turned out, but I’m also happy with how my initial concept seems to have played out.

"Refactoring Legacy Applications in CakePHP" is a guide to the real-world application of the framework (revising a site for an internet baseball league) with helpful tips and ticks along the way. You can pick up your own copy of the 61 page book for $10 USD via the "Buy Now" button at the bottom of the book's website.

Christopher Jones has a (very) quick post today about the release of the latest version of the PECL OCI drivers - 1.2.5.

Hang on, weren't we up to OCI8 version 1.3? Well, yes, but that's Beta bordering on Production. In the meantime, I wanted to make the OCI8 bug fixes from PHP 5.2.6 available in a "Production" release and keep PECL OCI8 1.2 in sync with PHP 5.2. The changelog is here.

Updates include bug fixes for cursor leaking, a LOB leak, a problem with collection creation and an update to the compile option for the Instant Client to look for RPMs.

In this new post to his blog, Ed Finkler talks about some tests he worked up to discover if a function is available in PHP or not while working on the latest version of PHPSecInfo).

is_callable() will return TRUE even if a function has been disabled in php.ini with disabled_functions (which, in my mind, is contrary to what “is_callable” implies). function_exists() will return FALSE if the function is disabled in php.ini, but will return TRUE if the function is being blocked by safe_mode.

So, to help counter these issues, he checks first to see if the exec('id') option works - checking it work function_exists and the setting for safe_mode (disabled). If it doesn't pass, he moves on to the posix_* function and tests then with a function_exists.

In this new post to his blog, Ed Finkler talks about some tests he worked up to discover if a function is available in PHP or not while working on the latest version of PHPSecInfo).

is_callable() will return TRUE even if a function has been disabled in php.ini with disabled_functions (which, in my mind, is contrary to what “is_callable” implies). function_exists() will return FALSE if the function is disabled in php.ini, but will return TRUE if the function is being blocked by safe_mode.

So, to help counter these issues, he checks first to see if the exec('id') option works - checking it work function_exists and the setting for safe_mode (disabled). If it doesn't pass, he moves on to the posix_* function and tests then with a function_exists.

As he (Aaron Wormus) mentions in this new blog posting, the PEAR book from Packt publsihing has officially been released.

This is a collaboration between Stoyan Stefanov, Stephan Schmidt, Carsten Lucke and me. The original book was conceived way back at IPC2k4 so it's been in the pipeline for a while now.

Aaron talks about the contents of the book too - the different aspects of programming with PEAR with a more "solution-based" perspective (versus just dumping all of the information in your lap and shoving you out the door). He's also created an unofficial community wiki for the book to give things like reviews, comments, and other book-related things a place to live.

As he (Aaron Wormus) mentions in this new blog posting, the PEAR book from Packt publsihing has officially been released.

This is a collaboration between Stoyan Stefanov, Stephan Schmidt, Carsten Lucke and me. The original book was conceived way back at IPC2k4 so it's been in the pipeline for a while now.

Aaron talks about the contents of the book too - the different aspects of programming with PEAR with a more "solution-based" perspective (versus just dumping all of the information in your lap and shoving you out the door). He's also created an unofficial community wiki for the book to give things like reviews, comments, and other book-related things a place to live.

PHP-GTK users can now rejoice (or even those that want to become PHP-GTK users)! According to Scott Mattocks (the author), the PHP-GTK book is now available.

PHP-GTK users can now rejoice (or even those that want to become PHP-GTK users)! According to Scott Mattocks (the author), the PHP-GTK book is now available.