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Cc: 'Adam Harvey' <aharvey@php.net>, 'Christoph Becker' <cmbecker69@gmx.de>,
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Date: Fri, 21 Aug 2015 23:30:00 +0200
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] libpcre version requirements
From: cmbecker69@gmx.de (Christoph Becker)

On 21.08.2015 at 22:37, Anatol Belski wrote:

>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Nikita Popov [mailto:nikita.ppv@gmail.com]
>> Sent: Friday, August 21, 2015 3:14 PM
>> To: Anatol Belski <anatol.php@belski.net>
>> Cc: Adam Harvey <aharvey@php.net>; Christoph Becker
>> <cmbecker69@gmx.de>; PHP internals <internals@lists.php.net>
>> Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] libpcre version requirements
>>
>> There already was some discussion about bumping the libpcre version for 5.6. I'll
>> quote what I said back then:
>>
>>> [...] I think the low version requirement is bad for other reasons:
>> There's a big gulf in terms of both features and bug fixes between PCRE 6.6 and
>> what PHP currently bundles. It's a bit ridiculous that you can end up using a PHP
>> version from 2014 together with a decade old PCRE version.
>>
>> and
>>
>>> It would still be nice to increase the minimum version number [...],
>> because allowing prehistoric PCRE versions in a new release makes zero sense. I
>> recommend at least 8.10 because it both supports marks and - more relevantly
>> to most users - supports UCP mode, which PHP uses by default (if available). UCP
>> mode can significantly change the behavior of PCRE with the /u modifier, as
>> such guaranteeing a minimum version of 8.10 will also guarantee a somewhat
>> consistent /u behavior.
>>
>> Basically, if we allow a too broad range of PCRE versions, we also allow a broad
>> range of behavior people have to deal with. If people use the /u modifier, they
>> will get significantly (and at the same time subtly) different behavior if PHP was
>> linked against libpcre newer or older than 8.10.
>>
>> Distros that will ship with PHP 7 will also ship with new PCRE versions.
>> External package repositories with PHP 7 will also have newer PCRE versions.
>> People compiling themselves use the bundled version.
>>
>> Let's bump this. If you install PHP 7 in 2016 you should *not* have to deal with a
>> PCRE version released in 2006.
>
> Yeah, I read this discussion here http://grokbase.com/t/php/php-internals/142wrqvs7p/add-support-for-pcre-marks . Seems it was not finished for some reasons.
> 
> I was mentioning "if it doesn't block the future development" exactly for the reason to hear if there's something. Now turns out there are at least two issues (count yours and Christoph's one) requiring a newer PCRE. Nevertheless - I'd prefer to keep the current situation for 7.0 and do it directly in master after 7.0 was branched which is merely a month away. Primarily to keep 7.0 compatible in as much areas as possible. Also worried a bit about that other 60% from the stats which are not Linux, Linuxes look actually good having >8.10 even for old stable. But that also means - keeping or not an option to use a lower version doesn't really hurt (at least for the popular distros like Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora). 
> 
> Also about the future work - IMHO it would make sense to start a port for PCRE2 at some point in autumn (and I'm intended to if no one started earlier) to target 7.1 or later. Regarding PCRE - it most likely won't get any new features but bug fixes only, PCRE2 is what were future oriented. 7.0 won't arrive in the distros earlier than in a yeah, or alike. And by that time that can be completely another priority.
> 
> So concluding - preferably were to keep the PCRE version for 7.0 and raise in master, unless you see some hard issue or want to make use of "new" features in PCRE 8.x that can't wait anymore, then please do now.

Would it be an acceptable compromise for everybody to stick with the
current *requirements* for now, but to document[1] that PCRE >= 8.10 is
*recommended* for PHP 5.6 and 7.0?

[1] <http://php.net/manual/en/pcre.installation.php>

-- 
Christoph M. Becker