What's New in PHP 8

PHP 8 introduced several features that make code shorter, safer, and easier to read. This page walks through the five most useful additions: the match expression, named arguments, the nullsafe operator (?->), constructor property promotion, and union types.

1) The match Expression

match is like a stricter switch that returns a value. It uses strict comparison (===) internally, has no fallthrough between arms, and throws an UnhandledMatchError if nothing matches and there is no default.

<?php
  $status = 200;

  $label = match ($status) {
    200, 201 => 'Success',
    404       => 'Not Found',
    500       => 'Server Error',
    default    => 'Unknown',
  };

  echo $label; // Success
?>

2) Named Arguments

Named arguments let you pass values by parameter name instead of position, making calls with several parameters self-documenting and letting you skip optional ones in any order.

<?php
  function myFunc(string $name, int $age = 18, string $country = 'IN') {
    echo "{$name}, {$age}, {$country}";
  }

  // Positional (old way)
  myFunc('Sonu', 25);

  // Named arguments (PHP 8) - order doesn't matter, intent is clear
  myFunc(name: 'Sonu', age: 25);
  myFunc(country: 'US', name: 'Amit'); // skips $age, uses its default
?>

3) The Nullsafe Operator (?->)

When chaining property or method access on something that might be null, the nullsafe operator short-circuits the whole chain to null instead of throwing a fatal error.

<?php
  // Before PHP 8: verbose null checks at every step
  $city = null;
  if ($user !== null && $user->address !== null) {
    $city = $user->address->city;
  }

  // PHP 8: nullsafe operator - short-circuits to null, no fatal error
  $city = $user?->address?->city;
?>

4) Constructor Property Promotion

Promoting constructor parameters directly into typed class properties removes the repetitive boilerplate of declaring a property and then assigning it inside the constructor body.

<?php
  // Before PHP 8
  class Product {
    private string $name;
    private float $price;

    public function __construct(string $name, float $price) {
      $this->name = $name;
      $this->price = $price;
    }
  }

  // PHP 8: constructor property promotion - same result, far less code
  class Product {
    public function __construct(
      private string $name,
      private float $price
    ) {}
  }
?>

5) Union Types

A parameter, return, or property type can now be declared as one of several possible types using the | separator, instead of falling back to no type at all.

<?php
  // $x may be an int OR a string
  function formatId(int|string $x): string {
    return 'ID-' . $x;
  }

  echo formatId(42);      // ID-42
  echo formatId('A9');    // ID-A9
?>