Summary Note:
The major problem was the
PHP 5.6 class constructors in the include files need to change to work in
PHP7.0.
We have years of custom code in those include files, so I need strategy to migrate, something like:
- Edit current PHP5.6 include files and move custom code to custom PHP hooks where feasible.
- Create a new dev directory by copying the new PHP include files compatible with PHP7.0 over the PHP5.6 files.
- Add custom PHP hooks to the new include files from the original PHP5.6 files.
- Add custom PHP code to the new include files from the original PHP5.6 files as required (where custome PHP hooks were not used).
- Test again on another weekend with the new includes directory so I can easily swap out entire directories during the testing.
Note that
viewing the forums, the posts and the thread and most of the pages worked great during the test today. What
broke were the PHP class constructors when creating a new thread, a new user, editing a post, updating, etc.
That is why we are still at PHP 5.6
Also, note that one of our very old Bayesian spam classifier plugins broke with fatal errors, but we do not use that "B8" classifier anymore, so I disabled it and will remove it.
Also, note that the search forms broke (not the overall search function) without PHP errors or warnings and would not accept search terms pass to PHP from the HTML form. I will fix this after all the other upgrades are done, because that error does not throw any PHP errors so it will require custom debug / print variable statements.
Maybe I will try again next weekend. Maybe not
Wish I was coding new
Vue.js features and not doing PHP migration, but that's life. It's not all puppy dogs, chocolate, and roses.
Status:
Saturday May 4th the Forums
PHP5.6 to PHP7.0 tests are done for this week. We are back to normal running
PHP5.6 until further notice.