No problem. I just can't use it. It does not pass even basic "must work on
Debian Stable" test. Option creates parsing errors in older PHP versions
and I can't wrap it with PHP6 check. Such code must be stored in separate
libraries loaded only in PHP6 and issue affects way to many functions.
If scripts are portable, they should work on any PHP version without
tweaks in PHP_INI_PERDIR configuration. Minimal 5.2.1+ requirement is not
acceptable. We are not talking about code designed to work only on some
selected setup.
unicode.semantics is the third PHP configuration option that can seriously
break things. First two are 'variables_order' and 'gpc_order'.
Trust me, it was the only available solution we came up with that balanced backwards compatibility and the new language semantics. Would you rather that PHP 6 just updated language semantics without giving you an option to turn certain behaviors off?
IMHO, if you are set on working with binary strings exclusively, then you should not turn unicode.semantics=on. Why are you trying to turn it on if you are not using Unicode features?
-Andrei