1<?php 2$_SERVER['BASE_PAGE'] = 'releases/4_4_0.php'; 3include_once __DIR__ . '/../include/prepend.inc'; 4site_header("PHP 4.4.0 Release Announcement"); 5?> 6 7<h1>PHP 4.4. Release Announcement</h1> 8<p> 9The PHP Development Team would like to announce the immediate release of 10<a href="/downloads.php">PHP 4.4.0</a>. 11</p> 12<p> 13This is a maintenance release that addresses a serious memory corruption 14problem within PHP concerning references. If references were used in a wrong 15way, PHP would often create memory corruptions which would not always surface 16or be visible. In other cases it could cause variables and objects to change 17type or class unexpectedly. If you encountered strange behavior like this, this 18release might fix it. The increased middle digit was required because the fix that 19corrected the problem with references changed PHP's internal API, breaking 20binary compatibility with the PHP 4.3.* series. This means that all binary 21extension modules need to be recompiled in order to work with this release. 22</p> 23<p> 24As part of the solution for the reference bug, you are very likely to find that 25your own or third-party PHP scripts, considered 'clean' code under previous 26versions of PHP, will now throw an E_NOTICE when references are incorrectly used 27in the script. This is intended to alert developers to minor errors in their 28approach, and does not affect the script's performance in any other way. 29</p> 30<p> 31Besides the reference problem, this release also fixes numerous other bugs, 32including a small security problem with our bundled shtool. 33</p> 34 35<h2>Bugfix release</h2> 36 37<ul> 38<li>Memory corruptions with references.</li> 39<li>Small security problem with bundled shtool.</li> 40</ul> 41 42<p> 43 For a full list of changes in PHP 4.4.0, see the 44 <a href="/ChangeLog-4.php#4.4.0">ChangeLog</a>. 45 </p> 46 47<?php site_footer(); ?> 48
