WordPress VIP Documentation

Preparing WordPress application code for the PHP 8 upgrade

All WordPress environments on the VIP Platform will be running PHP 8.0 or above by Monday, the 15th of November 2022. Customers are encouraged to begin preparing their application code to be compatible with PHP 8.0 or above—and updating the PHP version running on their environments—as soon as possible.

Application code should be thoroughly tested on a non-production environment and all compatibility issues should be resolved before updating the PHP version on a production environment. Recommended methods for testing:

• Scan application code with PHPCS and address any detectible incompatibilities.
• Create a VIP Local Development environment with PHP 8.0 or 8.1 where a local git clone of application code can be tested.
• Update a non-production environment to PHP 8.0 or 8.1 at any time via Software Management in the VIP Dashboard.

VIP has collected a list of known PHP 7.4 warnings that will become PHP fatal errors under PHP 8.0 and will negatively impact application performance if they are not addressed. Customers can review PHP warnings and errors in the Runtime Logs of their environments. For more details about incompatible changes between PHP versions, refer to the official PHP reference for  migrating from PHP 7.4.x to PHP 8.0.x.

WordPress development resources