PHP 8.5 lays down long-awaited pipe operator, adds new URI tools

PHP 8.5 landed on Thursday with a long-awaited pipe operator and a new standards-compliant URI parser, marking one of the scripting language's more substantial updates.

PHP, short for Personal Home Page when initially released in 1995 by Rasmus Lerdorf, now stands for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor. Version 8.5 is a major release that brings with it a handful of useful new capabilities. It follows PHP 8.4, which debuted a year ago.

Chief among these is the addition of a pipe operator.

"I don't think it's immodest to say that the pipe operator has one of the highest 'bangs for the buck' of any feature in recent memory, alongside such niceties as constructor property promotion," wrote Larry Garfield, a member of the PHP-FIG (framework interop group) core committee, back in July.

$arr = [
  new Widget(tags: ['a', 'b', 'c']),
  new Widget(tags: ['c', 'd', 'e']),
  new Widget ...