Good Bye PHP 5
A few days ago I merged a patch into Xdebug that removes support for PHP 5 in Xdebug's master branch on GitHub. Maintaining PHP 5 and PHP 7 support in one code base is not particularly easy, and even more complicated for something like Xdebug, with its deep interactions with PHP's internals.
As PHP 5.6's active support has ended on December 31st, I also felt it no longer needed to support PHP 5 with Xdebug any more. It saves more than 5000 lines of code:
Many people people were quite positive about that:
Others were less keen:
Removing PHP 5 support from Xdebug's master branch does not mean that Xdebug suddenly stops working for PHP 5 installations. Xdebug 2.5, which was recently released supports PHP 5.5 and 5.6, and is not going to go away.
Right now, Xdebug will no longer receive new features in the branch that also supports PHP 5. New features will only go into master (to become Xdebug 2.6). However, Xdebug 2.5 continues to receive bug fixes until Xdebug 2.6 comes out.
Once Xdebug 2.6 comes out, the Xdebug 2.5 branch will no longer get bug fixes, and hence support for PHP 5 goes away. That still does not mean that you can no longer use Xdebug with PHP 5. The releases of the 2.5 branch will still be available.
On the positive side, not having to implement lots of code twice, also means that new features can be added faster, as less work is required. Xdebug 2.6 has already have some new features lined up.
Life Line
Updated an information and a bench
Created 2 benches
Created 4 picnic_tables, a bench, and a fitness_station; Updated a pub and a sport club
Created 2 benches and 2 waste_baskets; Updated 4 benches, a bus_stop, and a cafe; Confirmed a dentist
Created 3 waste_baskets, 2 main entrances, and a bench; Deleted a cycle_barrier, a bench, and a waste_basket
Created an information; Updated a waste_basket and a bench
Updated 2 waste_baskets and a bench
Created 3 benches
Created a waste_basket; Updated 2 benches and a tree
I walked 3.5km in 35m31s
Created a main entrance and a home entrance
Created an entrance
Updated a house building
Created an entrance
I walked 5.8km in 1h15m06s
I've just finished reading "A Cheese-Monger's Tour de France", by Ned Palmer.
Now I want to try many of those! 🧀
I'm thrilled to announce that I'll be speaking at the 23rd edition of #phpday, the international PHP conference in Italy, organised by @grusp.
I’ll be presenting a talk titled: "Better Debugging With Xdebug".
It's in Verona, Italy, on May 14-15th 2026.
You can use my speaker’s discount code "speaker_10OFF" for 10% off at https://www.phpday.it/tickets/?utm_medium=organic&utm_source=linkedin&utm_campaign=post-speaker
I walked 5.5km in 1h11m00s
I walked 1.1km in 9m37s
Merged pull request #1066
PHP 8.6: Changes to opcache optimisations wrt function arguments
I walked 10.5km in 1h49m54s
Fixed building type
Fixed addresses and building type
Updated a bus_stop, a waste_basket, and a bench


Shortlink
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