---
title: PHP 5.3.0 Released
date: 2009-06-30 22:50:20
permalink: https://lesterchan.net/blog/2009/06/30/php-5-3-0-released/
author: Lester Chan
excerpt: "The PHP development team has released PHP 5.3.0, a major improvement in the 5.x series with a large number of new features and bug fixes, including namespace support. A welcome update for anyone building modern applications in PHP."
categories:
  - Software
tags:
  - PHP
---

Copy and pasted from [PHP 5.3.0 Release Announcement](https://www.php.net/releases/5_3_0.php).

The PHP development team is proud to announce the immediate release of PHP 5.3.0. This release is a major improvement in the 5.X series, which includes a large number of new features and bug fixes.

**The key features of PHP 5.3.0 include:**

- Support for [namespaces](https://www.php.net/namespaces)
- [Late static binding](https://www.php.net/lsb)
- [Lambda Functions and Closures](https://www.php.net/manual/en/functions.anonymous.php)
- Syntax additions: [NOWDOC](https://www.php.net/manual/en/language.types.string.php#language.types.string.syntax.nowdoc), [ternary short cut “?:”](https://www.php.net/ternary) and [jump label](https://www.php.net/goto) (limited goto), [\_\_callStatic()](https://www.php.net/__callstatic)
- Under the hood performance improvements
- Optional [garbage collection](https://www.php.net/gc_enable) for cyclic references
- Optional mysqlnd PHP native replacement for libmysql
- Improved [Windows](https://www.php.net/downloads.php?os=windows) support including VC9 and experimental X64 binaries as well as portability to other supported platforms
- More consistent float rounding
- Deprecation notices are now handled via `E_DEPRECATED` (part of `E_ALL`) instead of the `E_STRICT` error level
- Several enhancements to enable more [flexiblity in php.ini](https://www.php.net/ini.sections) (and ini parsing in general)
- New bundled extensions: [ext/phar](https://www.php.net/phar), [ext/intl](https://www.php.net/intl), [ext/fileinfo](https://www.php.net/fileinfo), [ext/sqlite3](https://www.php.net/sqlite3), [ext/enchant](https://www.php.net/enchant)
- Over 140 bug fixes and improvements to PHP, in particular to: [ext/openssl](https://www.php.net/openssl), [ext/spl](https://www.php.net/spl) and [ext/date](https://www.php.net/datetime)

This release also drops several extensions and unifies the usage of internal APIs. Users should be aware of the following known backwards compatibility breaks:

- Parameter parsing API unification will cause some functions to behave more  
     or less strict when it comes to type juggling
- Removed the following extensions: [ext/mhash](https://www.php.net/mhash) (see [ext/hash](https://www.php.net/hash)), ext/msql, [ext/pspell](https://www.php.net/pspell) (see [ext/enchant](https://www.php.net/enchant)), ext/sybase (see ext/sybase\_ct)
- Moved the following extensions to PECL: ext/ming, ext/fbsql, ext/ncurses, [ext/fdf](https://www.php.net/fdf)
- Removed [zend.ze1\_compatibility\_mode](https://www.php.net/manual/en/ini.core.php)

For users upgrading from PHP 5.2 there is a migration guide available here, detailing the changes between those releases and PHP 5.3.0.

For a full list of changes in PHP 5.3.0, see the [ChangeLog](https://www.php.net/ChangeLog-5.php#5.3.0).