Hi
Am 2026-01-30 01:37, schrieb Ben Ramsey:
I've voted "no" on this RFC since the RFC says the proposed PHP version
is PHP 8.5, which I interpret as meaning PHP 8.6, since 8.5 was
released in November.
Even if PHP 8.6 is the proposed version, I still think the target
version should be PHP 9.0, since this is a BC break. I mentioned my
concern about this being a BC break in the discussion thread.
The RFC is also clear this is a BC break. It says:
This is a **backward incompatible change**. Scripts that rely on
`trim()` *preserving* leading or trailing Form Feed characters will
be affected.
I'm a little surprised by the number of folks who voted "yes" on this,
despite it being very clear this is a BC break and PHP "Next" is the
implied proposed version.
I however disagree that the target version of this RFC should be 9.0.
It technically is a BC break, but so is almost anything else, including
any bugfix. Our policy explicitly allows BC breaks in minor version, but
gives some recommendations as to what BC breaks are acceptable:
https://github.com/php/policies/blob/6ff3612f7f60e9d91188d986cfb4ca84d0722732/release-process.rst#minor-version-number
While the proposed BC break would be a “silent” BC break, I believe it
qualifies for the “case by case” exception, since:
- It is unifying the behavior with other programming languages,
including standards defining what “whitespace” means.
- trim is well-understood in the community as “removing whitespace”.
- Thus it not removing something that clearly is whitespace could be
interpreted as a bug.
- If users for some reason rely on form feed characters being preserved,
I expect them to be well aware of their special requirement.
- For those users, mitigating the break is possible with basic tooling,
by simply searching the codebase for all occurences of `trim(` and then
adjusting the calls to explicitly specify a list of characters to trim
(or to replace them with a wrapper).
For these reasons I don't think we should wait several years until PHP 9
to make the change. We're shipping more impactful breaking changes and
bugfixes with every minor version.
Best regards
Tim Düsterhus
