(copied from www.php.net)

The PHP team is proud to announce the final release of PHP 5! 

Some of the key features of PHP 5 include:


The Zend Engine II with a new object model and dozens of new features. 


XML support has been completely redone in PHP 5, all extensions are now 
focused around the excellent libxml2 library (http://www.xmlsoft.org/). 


A new SimpleXML extension for easily accessing and manipulating XML as 
PHP objects. It can also interface with the DOM extension and 
vice-versa. 


A brand new built-in SOAP extension for interoperability with Web 
Services. 


A new MySQL extension named MySQLi for developers using MySQL 4.1 and 
later. This new extension includes an object-oriented interface in 
addition to a traditional interface; as well as support for many of 
MySQL's new features, such as prepared statements. 

SQLite has been bundled with PHP. For more information on SQLite, please 
visit their website. 

Streams have been greatly improved, including the ability to access 
low-level socket operations on streams. 
And lots more... 

For changes since Release Candidate 3, please consult the ChangeLog. 


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Changelog is at: http://www.php.net/ChangeLog-5.php



... I for one welcome our new PHP overlords!
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