This is the new first major since the release of the wrapper in May 2016.
Zend Framework (ZF) is an excellent framework for the development of robust business applications, and one that we -- at Text Control GmbH -- have been using since its original incarnation in 2006. We will continue to use ZF in other project, but not in the ReportingCloud PHP wrapper.
The ReportingCloud PHP wrapper is just one component of a typical web application -- a minor component, it may be added. The fewer components that such a wrapper depends upon, the better.
For applications based on ZF3, the ReportingCloud PHP wrapper 1.x had excellent integration. However, the problems (read "dependency hell") started when you tried to install the ReportingCloud PHP wrapper 1.x into an older ZF2 or ZF1 application. In many cases, it was impossible due to conflicts in the required version of the ZF component ServiceManager.
As a consequence, the ZF3 dependency in the ReportingCloud PHP wrapper 1.x alienated all developers, maintaining older ZF applications.
Additionally, when using the PHP ReportingCloud Wrapper 1.x in an application not based on ZF -- for example, one based on Symfony, Laravel, or a home-grown framework, it seemed very wasteful pulling in all the dependent ZF components (ServiceManager, Stdlib, Validator and Filter), just in order to use the ReportingCloud web service.
For these two reasons, the PHP ReportingCloud Wrapper 2.0 no longer depends upon ZF. The required validation functionality is provided by Assert, which has no further dependencies and, in comparison to ZF, is extremely lightweight.
Since the PHP ReportingCloud Wrapper is popular in the Zend Framework community, we do not want to alienate this group of developers. Therefore, if you are maintaining or planning a ZF3 based application, take a look at the official ReportingCloud Zend Framework 3 Module. This ZF3 module tightly integrates ReportingCloud into the ZF3 View (as a View Helper) and Mvc (as a Controller Plugin) components. Furthermore, the ReportingCloud service can be accessed during dependency injection in the ServiceManager.
All versions of PHPs prior to 7.1 have reached end-of-life and therefore, no further security updates will be released for them. We moved the minimum PHP version to the oldest supported PHP version, namely 7.1, to ensure that the ReportingCloud PHP wrapper can be installed in as many supported environments as possible:
| Wrapper Version | Minimum PHP Version |
|---|---|
| ReportingCloud PHP wrapper 2.0 | PHP 7.1 |
| ReportingCloud PHP wrapper 1.x | PHP 5.6 |
If you require support for PHP 5.6, consider updating your environment, or take a look at ReportingCloud PHP wrapper 1.x.
Besides running faster than previous versions, PHP 7.1 offers new features, such as:
- Strict typing
- Constant visibility
- Multi catch exception handling
- Void functions
- Nullable types
The ReportingCloud PHP wrapper 2.0 takes advantage of these new features to make the code shorter, securer and robuster.
It is bad practice to place magic numbers in program code, and that goes for HTTP response codes too. In the ReportingCloud PHP wrapper 2.0, all HTTP response codes, which are checked following every interaction with the backend server, have been abstracted to constants in TxTextControl\ReportingCloud\StatusCode\StatusCode. These constants are then used in the main program code.
Common functionality for handling strings, array and console interactions has been abstracted to a new component called TxTextControl\ReportingCloud\Stdlib\ConsoleUtils.
The ReportingCloud PHP wrapper has 100% test coverage, powered by PHPUnit. In version 2.0, we upgraded all unit tests to PHPUnit 7.5. We have tested in PHP 7.1, PHP 7.2 and PHP 7.3.