"[18-Mar-2004] The first Release Candidate of PHP 5 is finally here! The move from Beta stage to RC stage means that PHP 5 is now feature complete, and is quite stable - stable enough for everyone to start playing with. Note that it is still not recommended for mission-critical use.
Some of the key features of PHP 5 include:
- The Zend Engine II with a new object model and dozens of new features.
- XML support has been completely redone in PHP 5, all extensions are now focused around the excellent libxml2 library
- A new MySQL extension named MySQLi for developers using MySQL 4.1 and later. This new extension includes an object-oriented interface in addition to a traditional interface; as well as support for many of MySQL's new features, such as prepared statements.
- SQLite has been bundled with PHP. For more information on SQLite, please visit their website.
- A brand new built-in SOAP extension for interoperability with Web Services.
- A new SimpleXML extension for easily accessing and manipulating XML as PHP objects. It can also interface with the DOM extension and vice-versa.
- Streams have been greatly improved, including the ability to access low-level socket operations on streams.
- And lots more...
For changes since Beta 4, please consult the ChangeLog."
Looks very promising, especially the SOAP and XML extensions. You can download PHP5 RC1 from here.
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