article --summary
The summary
The PHP team has released RC7 of PHP 8.6.0 and is asking developers to run their apps, frameworks, and packages against it within the next week and report any breakage. The release is explicitly a test build and should stay out of production, with GA planned for November 19, 2026.
Changes since RC5 include a timelib update to 2026.03, a Fileinfo fix so TrueType fonts stop being labeled as application/octet-stream, and correct MIME detection for HWPX files. There are also fixes for use-after-free bugs in OpenSSL handshakes and in stream context handling during request startup, plus an array_map() optimization fix for first-class callables.
Maintainers of PECL or custom extensions are advised to rebuild against RC7 now, since the ABI padding change bumps the API version. The post points readers to the download page, signature checks, the UPGRADING notes, and php-src GitHub Issues for reporting problems.
Editorial note: This is a summary of an article first published by PHP News. The full piece is on their site.