We're thrilled to announce the latest upgrade to our shared Cloud Web Hosting platform. The very latest PHP version, PHP 5.6 is now fully supported on the Cloud. PHP 5.6 is filled to the brim with new features and code improvements, each of which have been carefully designed to help web developers. Here's a few of the biggest features of the update to PHP 5.6:

• Constant expressions: Constants can now be defined in terms of other constants, strings and numbers giving you the flexibility to write clearer code.
• Exponentiation: It's now simpler to raise one number to the power of another.
• Variadic functions: The syntax of variadic functions is now much cleaner than previous versions.
• "use" keyword: PHP's "use" keyword now lets you do more with namespaces, so you can organise your code better.
• phpdbg: phpdbg is now bundled with PHP, helping you better understand where your code is going wrong.
• php://input: This stream will now remember its content after you read it, so you can read it again later. The content will only be lost after the script stops running.
• Peer verification: Peer verification is now on by default. When your server talks to another server over SSL, the other server's certificate will be automatically checked.
• It's now easier to set the default character encoding for various parts of PHP.

For more detailed information on the update please click here.

Compatibility:

Most of our Cloud users will be able to update to PHP 5.6 without any issues, however this latest update may cause compatibility issues on some websites. For that reason we strongly recommend that you check your scripts compatibility before you make the update.

Updating to the latest version is optional, as always you can continue to run PHP versions 5.2 - 5.5 on your hosting.

Updating to PHP 5.6:

It only takes a few seconds to update your hosting to run PHP 5.6. Simply log into your Cloud control panel and follow these simple steps:

1. Click the 'Manage Website' button next to your website's name
2. Go to 'PHP Version', which can be found under 'Advanced Management Settings' <img src="/assets/uploads/blog/legacy/php5_6photo1.jpg" alt="Cloud Control Panel" class="mB05" height=110" width="700" />
3. Open the dropdown menu. Here, you can select any PHP version from 5.2 upwards. Select 'PHP 5.6', then click the green 'Set' button.

For more information on this latest PHP version, check out the official guide here, or feel free to ask us in the comments section below.

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