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.
