I guess this is a general question. However, Rooms is the first module i have, for D7, that requires php 5.3.*

I have a dedicated server, default is php 5.2. I can upgrade to 5.3.*, this would mean i can run rooms module.

However... All of my other drupal installations, a selection of D6 and D7, and associated modules, require only php 5.2, so, if i upgrade to php 5.3.*, although rooms will work, the rest of my drupal websites probably won't! (as far as i know)

I am aware that this is the way dev and progress go.

But, i am at a loss as to what to do.

I just wonder what other drupalers would do and are doing in this situation.

The only solution i can think at this stage is to open another hosting account, but this is just starting to cost lots, and, i have an expensive dedicated server already.

Any feedback greatly appreciated.

Comments

fietserwin’s picture

fietserwin
Location Le Mont-Dore
commented

Don't be too wary about upgrading. I guess that by now most Drupal installations already run on PHP 5.3 and the requirement for Drupal and contrib modules is 5.2 or higher, thus they are expected to run correctly on 5.3. So I would just give it a go (in dev/test first of course) and see if you notice any problems.

That said, the requirement for 5.3 in Rooms is not that it is using fancy new features like anonymous callbacks or namespaces (that are a bit more difficult to backport) but the use of the DateInterval class. This class can easily be avoided by using DateTime::modify, see the notes on http://www.php.net/manual/en/datetime.add.php (and is what I used in Availability Calendars).

ronald_istos’s picture

ronald_istos commented
Assigned: Unassigned » ronald_istos
Issue tags: +alpha-blocker

My first concern was covering the breadth of functionality required and doing that in the most efficient way possible.

Happy to work with others to revisit certain decisions and make adjustments. It is not just the DateInterval class but also some functions from the DateTime class as well. I think they should all have workarounds although there is clarity that comes from using just the OO-based classes rather than dipping in and out of approaches. I am going to set this as an alpha-blocker not because we will make sure that we don't need 5.3 but to make sure we think this through properly.

fietserwin’s picture

fietserwin
Location Le Mont-Dore
commented

Personally, I think it is time to move on, also because lack of compatibility is not a real issue between in PHP. And developer productivity is an issue as well (why redoing things that work). But I know there are hosters who are very very reluctant to do any upgrade what so ever. So I thought it a bit strange to get this request from someone in control of its own server ...

FanisTsiros’s picture

FanisTsiros commented

Personally, i think this is not a good practice, a module with requirements higher than drupal 7's requirements.
Mainly because, so many people could not test your - excelent - module. I was dissapointed to see that with php 5.2.17 i cannot even test this module.

Ok i am a developer, and i'll set up a testing environment tonight in my linux box, but, i wish i could test "rooms" in my hosting provider. I am not a PHP guru and i certainly can't understand the benefits using PHP 5.3, (classes ? and OOP i guess) but please think of many drupalers wishing to test this module.

Count me with much feedback, as i was looking forward for this module to come live !
Thanks !

damienmckenna’s picture

damienmckenna
Location TN, USA
commented

@FanisTsiros: several other modules only work properly with PHP 5.3, e.g. Entities API. You should also consider that PHP 5.2 has reached its end-of-life so you should try testing your sites under 5.3 anyway.

mr_christopher’s picture

mr_christopher commented

I'd also like to test Rooms with either of my two hosting providers. Neither support php 5.3 yet. One of them is an Aegir host which won't support the upgrade while there are still many 6.x platforms.

I agree that it is time to move on to 5.3, my hosts just won't allow that for me. :(

Thanks for the great module!

ronald_istos’s picture

ronald_istos commented
Status: Active » Closed (won't fix)

With php 5.4 out now and a number of dependencies I think we can definitively say that this module will stick to 5.3 and upwards.

ronald_istos’s picture

ronald_istos commented

hi mattys - unless there is something quite particular about the modules you use you can upgrade your php to 5.3. Everything should still just work - I have plenty of sites running on D6 and D7 and all on servers with php5.3

mattys’s picture

mattys commented

yep, thanks ronald, i will def be doing this soon, im sure i will hit a few little quirks, but hopefully nothing significant

gibney’s picture

gibney commented

When I tried to enable the rooms module it was blocked and showed the following message
This module requires PHP version 5.3.* and is incompatible with PHP version 5.2.17.
I upgraded my version of the acquia dev stack which allows me to select php 5.3. However the error message remains despite having selected 5.3 ?
I know this is not a rooms issue, however a nudge in the right direction would be appreciated. Thanks if you can advise. And if not then thanks anyway for what looks like a great module for anyone involved in developing travel and tourism websites.
Andy

pitxels’s picture

pitxels commented

I guess the decision is taken and this module will run on php 5.3, but this will block many many servers that will run on php 5.2.x for a while. I hope that was considered as well.