In a new post to his site Tomas Votruba talks about how to use Simplify to generate a changelog for your project's updates and output it into a CHANGELOG.md file.

ChangelogLinker started as a small tool to complete links to PRs, authors, and versions in CHANGELOG.md. Then it started to generate the CHANGELOG.md.

Where is now and how to start using it?

He starts by showing how to install the package via Composer and how to use it for:

• Multiple CHANGELOG.md for Smaller Versions
• [using] Smarter Last Change Detection
• Removing Dead Links
• Improved Category Detection

The last one is quite handy as it gives more context to the items in the resulting Changelog rather than just a list of commits.

Tomas Votruba has a new post to his site showing you how to add a global option or argument to your application that makes use of the Symfony Console component. In this case, a "global" option is one that can be given to any command in the application. For his needs, it's a filename.

I'm working on 3 Console Commands. All was good, until I needed to add an argument to all commands at once... and in lazy, extensible, maintainable way.

He starts by talking about some of the "why" behind the need to run multiple commands at once. He shows an example of having multiple CHANGELOG files and the need to define the output file for each rather than just one file. He then goes through four different possible implementations, including the code and pros/cons of the approach:

• Add Argument to Each Command
• Modify Application Definition
• The Symfony Event Subscriber Way
• Extend the Application

He ends the post mentioning the one he prefers (the last one on the list) and briefly mentions anti-patterns and finding the right solution over just the first one you find.

The main PHP.net site has announced the release of the latest version in the PHP 7.1.x series - PHP 7.1.19.

The PHP development team announces the immediate availability of PHP 7.1.19. All PHP 7.1 users are encouraged to upgrade to this version.

This is a bugfix release with fixes in the CLI server handling, OpenSSL functionality and a fix for a segfault in the SPL. You can see the full list of changes (and related bugs) in the Changelog for this release. As always, the release can be downloaded from the main downloads page or windows.php.net for the Windows binaries.

On the PHP.net site there's an announcement about the release of the latest version in the PHP 7.1.x series: PHP 7.1.10.

The PHP development team announces the immediate availability of PHP 7.1.10. This is a bugfix release, with several bug fixes included. All PHP 7.1 users are encouraged to upgrade to this version.

Changes in this release includes updates to the CLI server, cURL handling, gettext functionality and internationalization. As always you can get the latest release from the main downloads page or from windows.php.net for the Windows binaries.

On the AWS Developer blog they've posted about a new update in their PHP SDK functionality: a "changelog builder" that helps with automated changelog generation.

Starting with version 3.22.10 of the AWS SDK for PHP, released February 23, 2017, the Changelog Builder automatically processes all changelog entries. Each pull request is required to have a changelog JSON blob as part of the request. The system also calculates the next version for the SDK based on the type of the changes that are defined in the given changelog JSON blob.

The update simplifies the process of adding release notes to the CHANGELOG.md file for each pull request. Each merged pull request that was part of the release results in a new entry to the CHANGELOG.md file. The entry describes the change and provides the TAG number and release date.

This changelog is generated from a required JSON document for each pull request that provides information about the type of change, category and a brief description. They explain each of these items to give a little more context as to what they should contain along with a few examples.

This is something that could definitely help to improve other libraries as well, gathering the required change information from the contributor rather than having a project administrator have to sift through the PR to locate all changes.

If you were ever interested in the early days of PHP (back in the PHP/FI days, pre-3.0 even) Rasmus Lerdorf has a post sharing an old Changelog he created for some of the first PHP version releases.

Ran across this Changelog from a long long time ago. Read from the bottom up. I added the PHP Tools lines at the bottom for context. So many early decisions made on a whim still affecting us today. And then there are things like "Removed **, // and %% operators" which did a vector dot-product and its inverse, I think. I seem to recall deleting it when I tried to document it.

No years on most of the entries, but version 1.90 was on Sept.18, 1995.

It's an interesting read to see some of the thoughts and additions to the language early on. You can see which functions were added way back then and which ones have been dropped since including an entry for October 17th - "First public release of the code".

On The Changelog podcast hosts Nadia and Mikeal are joined by Jan Lehnardt to talk about building healthy communities around software and Open Source projects.

On today’s show Nadia and Mikeal are joined by Jan Lehnardt to discuss the value of building healthy communities to reduce burden on maintainers and create sustainable projects, how healthy communities help grow a project, and contributor models.

You can listen to this latest episode either through the in-page audio player or by downloading the mp3 for the show directly. If you enjoy the show and want to hear more from the podcast, be sure to follow their feed for more shows and articles as they're released.

As is mentioned in this post on the PHP.net site, the latest version in the PH 5.6.x series has been released: PHP 5.6.25.

The PHP development team announces the immediate availability of PHP 5.6.25. This is a security release. Several security bugs were fixed in this release. All PHP 5.6 users are encouraged to upgrade to this version.

Fixes in this release includes changes to Core, Calendar, Curl, DOM and GD functionality (including a few security-related issues). You can get this latest release from the main downloads page or windows.php.net for the Windows binaries. For a full list of changes and related bugs, check out the full Changelog.

The PHP development group has released several different versions of PHP for the 5.5.x, 5.6.x and 5.4.x series with a long list of security issues fixed in each one (fourteen in total):

The PHP development team announces the immediate availability of PHP [5.4.40, 5.6.8, 5.5.24]. 14 security-related bugs were fixed in this release, including CVE-2014-9709, CVE-2015-2301, CVE-2015-2783, CVE-2015-1352. All PHP 5.4 users are encouraged to upgrade to this version.

Other items were fixed besides the security issues, so check out the Changelog to see those few other fixes. It's highly recommended that you update your installations to these latest versions. You can grab the latest either from the downloads page (source) or Windows users can go to winodws.php.net.

The main PHP.net site has an announcement today about the latest released of the language fixing several bugs including a few security-related issues: PHP 5.5.22 and 5.4.38.

The PHP development team announces the immediate availability of PHP 5.5.22 and 5.4.38. This release fixes several bugs and addresses CVE-2015-0235 and CVE-2015-0273. All PHP 5.5 and 5.4 users are encouraged to upgrade to this version.

As always, you can get the latest source downloads from the downloads page or Windows users can get the binaries from windows.php.net. Those interested in the complete list of fixes in these releases can check out the latest entries in the Changelog.