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Some drops of PHP

Comparing PHP versions

Compare versions: version_compare()

The PHP versioning system follows a scheme named SemVer. The version identifier is a string with 3 numbers. Every time a new version of PHP is released, the version identifier is increased. The version identifier is something like MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH. Once a new release is created, the version is incremented following these rules:

  • The MAJOR version is incremented when incompatible API changes happen;
  • The MINOR version is incremented when there are changes to functionality in a backward-compatible manner;
  • The PATCH version is incremented when there are backward-compatible bug fixes.

For example, version 8.0.10 of PHP has 8 as MAJOR, 0 as MINOR and 10 as PATCH.

Sometimes it is useful to compare two versions.

For example, if you want to detect if the current version is greater or equal to “8.0.0” you can use the version_compare() function. With the phpversion() function, you can obtain the current version and with version_compare() you can compare it with a specific PHP version (for example with “8.0.0”).

The function version_compare() has 3 parameters. The first 2 parameters (mandatory) are the versions to compare. The third parameter (optional) is the operator to use for comparison. Operators could be <, lt, <=, le, >, gt, >=, ge, ==, =, eq, !=, <>, ne.

Comparing without operator

Calling version_compare() with 2 parameters returns a number. It returns:

  • 1 if the second parameter is greater (newer) than the first one;
  • 0 if both parameters are equal;
  • -1 if the second parameter is smaller (older) than the first one.
$version = phpversion();
echo $version . PHP_EOL;


$min_version = "8.0.0";


if (version_compare($version, $min_version) > 0) {
    echo "NEWER!   You have PHP {$version}. Minimum version is {$min_version}" . PHP_EOL;
} elseif (version_compare($version, $min_version) < 0) {
        echo "OLDER!  You have PHP {$version}. Minimum version is {$min_version}" . PHP_EOL;
} else { // version_compare is 0
    echo "EQUALS!  You have PHP {$version}. Minimum version is {$min_version}" . PHP_EOL;
}

Comparing with operator

Calling version_compare() with 3 parameters (version, version and operator) returns a boolean. The third parameter is the operator. The operators allowed are the following strings:

  • < or lt: less than;
  • <= or le: less than or equals;
  • >, gt: greater than;
  • >=, ge: greater or equal than;
  • ==, eq: equals;
  • !=, <>, ne: not equals.
$version = phpversion();
echo $version . PHP_EOL;


$min_version = "8.0.0";
if (version_compare($version, $min_version, "ge")) {
    echo "OK!   You have PHP {$version}. Minimum version is {$min_version}" . PHP_EOL;
} else {
    echo "OPS!  You have PHP {$version}. Minimum version is {$min_version}" . PHP_EOL;
}