Migrating Your App from PHP 5.5 to PHP 7.2

Learn how to migrate your PHP 5.5 application to the new PHP 7.2 runtime on the App Engine standard environment.

Compatibility issues between PHP 5.5 and PHP 7.2

The official PHP documentation provides information on migrating from different PHP versions:

Migrating your `app.yaml` file

You must place a front controller to handle all routing in your application. For more information, see Application startup.

The PHP 7.2 runtime does not allow the script handler element to be customized. The only valid value is auto, because all traffic is served using the entrypoint command. All non-static URL handlers must include script: auto to deploy successfully.

The behavior of some elements in the app.yaml configuration file has been modified:

Element	Change type	Description
`entrypoint`	Added	Optionally, use this field to specify the command that will run when your app starts.
`threadsafe`	Deprecated	All applications are presumed to be threadsafe, meaning an instance can handle multiple requests at the same time.
`api_version`	Deprecated	Previously required but not needed in the PHP 7.2 runtime.
`application_readable`	Deprecated
`builtins`	Deprecated
`libraries`	Deprecated	Arbitrary third party dependencies can be installed using a `composer.json` metadata file.
`handlers`	Modified	The `script` field is optional and the only accepted value is `auto`. Use a web framework (like `Laravel`, `Symfony`, `Slim`, or a similar option) with in-app routing to execute a script when a request hits a specific route The `login` field is not supported. Use Cloud Identity and Access Management for user management.

If you use of any of the deprecated fields, there will be an error on app deployment.

For more information, see the app.yaml reference.

Reduced runtime restrictions

The PHP 7.2 runtime has fewer restrictions compared to the PHP 5.5 runtime.

Install third-party dependencies.
The runtime includes a full filesystem.
Create background threads or processes that live beyond the scope of the request while the instance runs.
Use the Google Cloud Client Library for PHP to integrate apps with other Google Cloud Platform services. For more information, see the Installing the Google Cloud Client Library page.

For more information, see the PHP 7.2 runtime environment documentation.

Migrating from the App Engine PHP SDK

The PHP 7.2 runtime does not support the App Engine-specific APIs. Most of the functionality provided by these APIs is now provided by the Cloud SDK client library:

App Engine Blobstore API support is not provided. Use Cloud Storage through the google/cloud-storage client library. To get started, see the Cloud Storage Client Libraries page.
Cloud Datastore is accessible through the google/cloud-datastore client library. To get started see the Cloud Datastore Client Libraries page.
App Engine Images API support is not provided. Use Cloud Storage through the google/cloud-storage client library. To get started, see the Cloud Storage Client Libraries page.
App Engine Mail API support is not provided. You will need to use a third-party mail provider such as SendGrid, Mailgun, or Mailjet to send email. All of these services offer APIs to send email from applications. To integrate Mailjet and SendGrid on your App Engine application, see the Sending Emails with Mailjet and Sending Emails with SendGrid documentation.
App Engine Memcache support is not provided, but similar functionality can be achieved using Redis Labs Cloud.

App Engine Modules API is accessible using the google/apiclient library, but is no longer included in an official SDK. Use the environment variables and the App Engine Admin API to obtain information and modify your application's running services:

Service Information	How to access
Current service name	`GAE_SERVICE` environment variable
Current service version	`GAE_VERSION` environment variable
Current instance ID	`GAE_INSTANCE` environment variable
Default hostname	Admin API `apps.get` method
List of services	Admin API `apps.services.list` method
List of versions for a service	Admin API `apps.services.versions.list` method
Default version for a service, including any traffic splits	Admin API `apps.services.get` method
List of running instances for a version	Admin API `apps.services.versions.instances.list` method

App Engine Search API support is not provided. You can host any full-text search database such as ElasticSearch on Compute Engine and access it from your service.
App Engine Task Queue API will be replaced by Cloud Tasks. You can enqueue tasks from PHP 7 using the Cloud Tasks REST API, which is currently in Alpha, and you can use a PHP 7.2 App Engine standard service as a Push target. To request whitelisting and access to Cloud Tasks, fill out the Alpha sign up form.
Users API support is not provided.

Running your application locally

dev_appserver.py is not supported with the PHP 7.2 runtime. To test your application and run it locally, you must download and install PHP 7.2 and set up a web server.

For example, start the HTTP server by running the following command:

php -S localhost:8080

Then, view your application in your web browser at http://localhost:8080.