Re: MDB2 2.5.x and PHP 5.2?

Hi all,

Notwithstanding the ongoing move to 5.3, I imagine that there are others like me who will have to use 5.2 for a while yet, and it would be a real shame if we can't use any future versions of MDB2 - or have to force PEAR installs.

the minimum dependency set to PHP 5.3 is mainly due to great demand for full PHP 5.3 support without even STRICT errors. It might work with PHP 5.2, I haven't tested it extensively as I did for PHP 5.3 and don't have time to do it. I'd like everyone to appreciate the huge effort that a project like MDB2 entails. We're now up to 10 drivers (ten!), and bar a few occasional contributors, there's not really been another active developer in the past years. It took me a long time to take it to the current state, and I'm rather keen on promoting full compatibility with *current* PHP versions. If somebody can test it against PHP 5.2 (all the drivers) and can confirm it's working fine, I'll be happy to set the minimum dependency to PHP 5.2 in the next release.

(Somewhat related - another major change in this version that may affect upgraders is a BC break for PHP4 compatibility and some derived classes - http://pear.php.net/bugs/bug.php?id=17858 )

Declaring factory() static may be a BC break

I know. Sorry. There was nothing I could do in this case. On the other hand, it's always been documented (in phpdoc, in the manual and in the examples) as static. Now we have a language construct that enforces that. Try using a non-static method statically and see if PHP is happy. This is arguably the only BC "break" I introduced since dropping PHP4 support. I've been otherwise really careful in maintaining BC compatibility. The PEAR installer won't install the new version on older PHP versions, so the API compatibility is maintained even by dropping PHP4 support. And the existing documentation is still correct and won't change.

Especially if it's as "easy" as doing a new package - what's the hold off?

Till: feel free to write MDB3. "Easy" ;-) Oh, and people are still using MDB2, so now you have 2 packages to maintain (and all its subpackages!). Again, please appreciate the effort and the good intentions. If you find bugs or want to contribute, please step forward. Many people did in the past, and MDB2 is much better thanks to them. It's a win-win situation. Best regards, -- Lorenzo Alberton http://www.alberton.info http://pear.php.net/user/quipo