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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC] Drop support for 32bit builds
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2025 11:21:39 -0500
References: <faff22ce-dcb9-4013-80d9-ceddd0de5a12@mabe.berlin>
 <73D7B135-ABF8-4EFC-BF16-EA26A5BD1B7A@cmpct.info>
To: php internals <internals@lists.php.net>
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Message-ID: <B86F771B-1E5C-4D5A-9A22-3F8272A562B7@php.net>
From: ramsey@php.net (Ben Ramsey)


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> On Jun 19, 2025, at 11:08, Calvin Buckley <calvin@cmpct.info> wrote:
>=20
> On Jun 19, 2025, at 11:08=E2=80=AFAM, Marc Bennewitz =
<marc@mabe.berlin> wrote:
>>=20
>> Hi,
>>=20
>> During the discussion about the year 2038 issue it turned out that =
maybe it's time to drop support for 32-bit of PHP completely.
>>=20
>> Based on that I have created an RFC to deprecate 32-bit build in =
8.next and drop support for it in 9.
>>=20
>> RFC: https://wiki.php.net/rfc/drop_32bit_support
>=20
> I think the biggest arguments against this would be:
>=20
> - embedded systems; think of PHP in use for i.e. router web UIs. While =
I
> suspect a lot of these are going to be i.e. AArch64/RV64 in the =
future,
> there might be a long tail of existing systems. Of course, how many
> would upgrade to PHP 9?
>=20
> - WebAssembly; I don't know how widespread the Memory64 proposal is =
yet.
> We're using WebAssembly in the docs pages for runnable examples.
>=20
> And some niche cases like i.e. iSH (which emulates x86-32 on iOS).
>=20
> The other options include making zend_long always 64-bit and accept =
the
> performance penalty for 32-bit, or making 32-bit best-effort rather =
than
> providing any guarantees.


Last night, I was giving some thought to reviving Andrea=E2=80=99s Big =
Integer RFC[^1]. This is something I=E2=80=99ve wanted for a long time =
(especially for my ramsey/uuid library, among other things).

Andrea had a work-in-progress PR[^2]. I=E2=80=99m not sure the current =
state of it. It=E2=80=99s from 2014 and was originally written for =
phpng. I had planned to start teasing out bits of it into a new branch =
based on the current master branch to see how far I could get with it. I =
wouldn=E2=80=99t mind some help with that, if anyone=E2=80=99s =
interested. :-)

If we are able to finish what Andrea started, then we would not need to =
drop support for 32bit builds.

Cheers,
Ben


[^1]: https://wiki.php.net/rfc/bigint
[^2]: https://github.com/php/php-src/pull/876


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