Upcoming changes in PHP 7.1
I'm more excited by some features not detailed in the article.<p>Return type declarations, which were introduced in PHP 7.0, are being enhanced somewhat.<p>First, it's now possible to declare nullable return types (previously all return types did not permit null):<p><pre><code>  public function getFoo(): ?int;
</code></pre>
(You can also use ? on parameter and property types.)<p>Second, we now have a void return type for functions where there is no useful return value:<p><pre><code>  public function handle(): void;
</code></pre>
(Disclaimer: I wrote the void return type RFC and implementation, so I'm biased here.)<p>We're also getting type declarations for class properties:<p><pre><code>  class Person
  {
      public string $name;
      public int $age;
      public bool $isEmployee;
  }
</code></pre>
There's a few other things as well. The list() syntax (destructuring assignment) has been shortened to [] and now lets you specify keys (disclaimer: I was involved in both of these). Also, trying to add non-numeric strings together with + now produces a warning (disclaimer: also me).