PHP/Upgrading to PHP 7.1

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Compatibility check

PHP 7 has some major changes from the previous 5.x versions. All scripts should be checked before upgrading.

PHP 7 Compatiblity Checker is a wonderful tool to do this automatically.

PHP Static Analysis Tool is an amazing tool to check your code as if it was running. This is beyond syntax checking.

PHP Targets

To upgrade a system to PHP 7.1, first set the PHP_TARGETS variable in make.conf:

FILE /etc/portage/make.confSetting the target PHP version

PHP_TARGETS="php7-1"

Installation

Install PHP 7.1:

root #emerge --ask dev-lang/php:7.1

Replace APC

To build with the opcache USE flag (the default) while allowing the use of APC userland functions such as apc_fetch(), install APCu, which emulates APC but only has user caching functions. This may be necessary for older projects that rely on APC for caching.

Install APCu:

root #emerge --ask dev-php/pecl-apcu

The PHP 7 versions of pecl-apcu have a new syntax which need changes to support. Fortunately, there is a compatibility package, dev-php/pecl-apcu_bc:

root #emerge --ask dev-php/pecl-apcu_bc

Switch to PHP 7.1

Switch to it using eselect for all SAPIs:

root #

eselect php set cli php7.1

root #

eselect php set fpm php7.1

When other SAPIs are in use, be sure to run eselect for those as well.

Re-install compatible extensions

Since changing PHP_TARGETS is technically a USE flag change, it suffices to simply emerge @world with flags checking for new USE flags and all extensions should re-build.

root #emerge --ask --changed-use --deep @world

Migrate the configuration files

The different slots have different configuration paths. Please take care to migrate the configuration files before making use of a new slot.

Uninstall old PHP versions

For example, to remove PHP 5.6:

root #emerge --ask -vc dev-lang/php:5.6

Restart PHP-FPM

Restart PHP-FPM if applicable:

root #/etc/init.d/php-fpm restart