[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #40934: Allow PHP version requirements for plugins & themes

[WordPress Trac]

#40934: Allow PHP version requirements for plugins & themes
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 Reporter:  joostdevalk     |       Owner:
     Type:  enhancement     |      Status:  new
 Priority:  normal          |   Milestone:  4.9
Component:  Administration  |     Version:
 Severity:  normal          |  Resolution:
 Keywords:  dev-feedback    |     Focuses:
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Comment (by blobfolio):

 First of all, ''YES''!

 But...

 Replying to [comment:4 johnbillion]:
 > the only way this will happen is if supporting documentation comes
 first. Everything else comes down to relatively trivial technical
 implementation.

 I wouldn't underestimate the size of this task. Even if we ignore plugin
 author and user awareness (and documentation), we'd still be looking at
 patches to at least three different areas: the WP.org API, plugins
 frontend, and the Core itself. The API and Core work would both be
 "delicate" in that any failure or oversight could result in sites blowing
 up. Plugin and environment parsing would need to be robust enough to
 survive the odd typo or obscure version string. :)

 @joostdevalk Beyond a main PHP version, I think it would also be necessary
 to support extension requirements. Compatibility issues faced by my
 plugins are as often to be found there as the main version. Naming could
 get a bit tricky, so maybe it would be best to adopt the same approach
 Composer uses https://getcomposer.org/doc/01-basic-usage.md#platform-
 packages; people should be pretty familiar with that.

 I would also suggest that any approach needs to take care of ''upgrades''.
 Attempting to install an incompatible plugin isn't the end of the world,
 and in that narrow case plugin authors can basically compensate for WP's
 lack of innate handling. But upgrades, man, those are killer. There's
 currently no mechanism to revert to a known-working version, etc.

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Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/40934#comment:9>
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