New features

PHP 5.3.0 offers a wide range of new features:

• Support for namespaces has been added.
• Support for Late Static Bindings has been added.
• Support for jump labels (limited goto) has been added.
• Support for native Closures (Lambda/Anonymous functions) has been added.
• There are two new magic methods, __callStatic() and __invoke().
• Nowdoc syntax is now supported, similar to Heredoc syntax, but with single quotes.
• It is now possible to use Heredocs to initialize static variables and class properties/constants.
• Heredocs may now be declared using double quotes, complementing the Nowdoc syntax.
• Constants can now be declared outside a class using the const keyword.
• The ternary operator now has a shorthand form: ?:.
• The HTTP stream wrapper now considers all status codes from 200 to 399 to be successful.
• Dynamic access to static methods is now possible:
  <?php
class C {
   public static $foo = 123;
}

$a = "C";
echo $a::$foo;
?>

  The above example will output:

  123
  

• Exceptions can now be nested:
  <?php
class MyCustomException extends Exception {}

try {
    throw new MyCustomException("Exceptional", 112);
} catch (Exception $e) {
    /* Note the use of the third parameter to pass $e
     * into the RuntimeException. */
    throw new RuntimeException("Rethrowing", 911, $e);
}
?>
• A garbage collector for circular references has been added, and is enabled by default.
• The mail() function now supports logging of sent email via the mail.log configuration directive. (Note: This only applies to email sent through this function.)