Php 8.4

Drupal's Plugin API has been a key part of its flexibility and extensibility, allowing developers to add custom functionality in a clean and modular way. With the release of modern PHP features, such as PHP attributes, Drupal is evolving to improve the way plugins are defined and managed. This change introduces a cleaner, more efficient way to work with plugins, as it moves away from docblock annotations and embraces a more native PHP approach.

PHP 8.4 was released a little over two months ago, on November 21, 2024. Now seems like the perfect time to dive into some of the key features of this release, so let’s take a closer look at what’s new. This overview will touch on several important updates without getting into every detail, as there’s a lot to explore.

Here’s what I’ll be covering in this post:

PHP 8.4, released on November 21, 2024, introduces several significant features and changes aimed at enhancing code quality, performance, and developer experience. Here's an overview of the key updates:

1. Property Hooks

Property hooks allow developers to define custom behavior for property access and modification directly within the class, eliminating the need for traditional getters and setters. This feature simplifies class design and enhances maintainability. citeturn0search0

2. Asymmetric Visibility

The latest version of PHP is 8.4.4, which was released on February 13, 2025. PHP 8.4 is the current development branch for new features and major changes. [1, 2]  
PHP version release dates [3]  

• PHP 8.4: Released on November 21, 2024 
• PHP 8.3: Released on November 23, 2023 
• PHP 8.2: Released on December 8, 2022 
• PHP 8.1: Released on November 25, 2021

New features in PHP 8.3 [1, 4]  

"PHP 8.4 Released with New Array Find Functions, Property Hooks, Simplified Class Instantiation, and More" 

# New Array Find Functions in PHP 8.4

 PHP 8.4 introduces new array find functions, including: - `array_find()` - `array_find_key()` - `array_any()` - `array_all()`

PHP Property Hooks

Property hooks in PHP are inspired by languages like Kotlin, C#, and Swift. The syntax includes two variants, resembling short and multi-line closures.