DanielEScherzer · Nov 14, 2025 · Nov 13, 2025 · Nov 13, 2025 · Nov 13, 2025 · Nov 13, 2025
diff --git a/resources/ATTRIBUTION.txt b/resources/ATTRIBUTION.txt
@@ -11,3 +11,7 @@
 
 * missing-3-confusion.svg
 	Created by hand using https://www.svgviewer.dev/
+
+* extra-5-confusion.svg
+	Created by hand using https://www.svgviewer.dev/
+	Based on my previous work on missing-3-confusion.svg
diff --git a/resources/extra-5-confusion.svg b/resources/extra-5-confusion.svg
diff --git a/sitemap.xml b/sitemap.xml
@@ -57,4 +57,7 @@
  <url>
   <loc>https://scherzer.dev/Blog/20251029-longhorn-php</loc>
  </url>
+ <url>
+  <loc>https://scherzer.dev/Blog/20251113-release-candidate-5</loc>
+ </url>
 </urlset>
diff --git a/src/Blog/posts/20251113-release-candidate-5.md b/src/Blog/posts/20251113-release-candidate-5.md
@@ -0,0 +1,131 @@
+---
+title: The Story of PHP 8.5.0 Release Candidate 5
+extra-classes:
+  - blog-page--sidebar-image
+---
+
+# The Story of PHP 8.5.0 Release Candidate 5
+
+PHP 8.5.0 Release Candidate 4, [announced][rc4-announce] last week, was expected
+to be the last release candidate (RC) of the PHP 8.5.0 development cycle, before
+the general availability release next week. But, earlier today I
+[announced the release of PHP 8.5.0 RC5][rc5-announce]. So, why was an extra
+release candidate needed?
+
+![Extra RC5 confusion](/resources/extra-5-confusion.svg)
+
+When PHP 8.5.0 RC4 was tagged and announced, it was expected to be the last
+release candidate before the general availability (GA) release of 8.5.0 next
+week. But, a few bugs surfaced that seemed to warrant having their fixes
+included in the GA release.
+
+Technically, the GA release could have bug fixes that were never included in
+any of the testing releases. But, that would result in releasing code that was
+only really tested with GitHub's continuous integration. Such a situation should
+be avoided.
+
+## Bugs
+Our goal, as always, is to ship releases with no known bugs. But, at some point,
+we have to draw a line and delay further fixes until the next patch release,
+in this case PHP 8.5.1. New bugfix releases of supported versions of PHP
+(currently PHP 8.3 and PHP 8.4, soon to include PHP 8.5) are announced every
+four weeks as bugs are continuously addressed. Neither PHP 8.5.0 RC5 nor the
+eventual GA release are expected to be entirely free from bugs, but they should
+be free from issues that would prevent upgrading from earlier versions of PHP.
+
+The great thing about people testing the release candidates before the GA
+release is packaged is that we can change things when issues are found. Which
+is exactly what we are doing here, thanks to user reports.
+
+Among the many changes coming in PHP 8.5, three specific changes led to
+bugs that we thought warranted addressing before the GA release. These were
+
+* the creation of the new ext/uri extension
+* the addition of a new INI option, `max_memory_limit`
+* the deprecation of returning non-strings from output handlers
+
+Thanks to volunteers who tested out the release candidates, and continued
+developer attention, we found and addressed the following issues
+
+* [#20431][gh-20431]: `Uri\Rfc3986\Uri::setHost(null)` turns empty path into `/`
+* No distinction between empty and missing query/fragment when using
+`Uri\WhatWg\Url::getQuery()` and `Uri\WhatWg\Url::getFragment()`
+* [#17951][gh-17951]: `memory_limit` is not always limited by `max_memory_limit`
+* [#20384][gh-20384]: Confirm if `ob_gzhandler` is impacted by `ob_start`
+handler changes
+
+For the `ob_gzhandler` issue, the fix was actually to revert the underlying
+changes to `ob_start`. As part of the [PHP 8.4 deprecations RFC][rfc-84-dep],
+a proposal was accepted to emit deprecation warnings when an output handler
+returned something other than a string. That deprecation wasn't implemented for
+the 8.4 release, but I came across the unimplemented RFC and
+[implemented it][gh-18932] back in July, in time for inclusion in the PHP 8.5
+release. The issue filed here was asking for some clarification when the output
+handler was the [`ob_gzhandler`][fn-ob_gzhandler] function from the zlib
+extension. After some discussion on the issue, it looked like a bugfix was
+going to be applied to improve the behavior of the deprecation warnings, but
+eventually it was decided to just revert the deprecation entirely. I'm not sure
+to what extent my reluctance to revert the deprecation was based on having been
+the one to originally implement the deprecation, rather than wanting to avoid
+changes to the release so close to it being finalized in my role as a release
+manager.
+
+Initially, these were addressed the same way bugfixes generally are - a patch
+against the relevant version of PHP, in this case PHP 8.5. There are no special
+restrictions on merging commits to the branches of supported PHP versions - any
+developer with access can merge the changes.
+
+## Cherry Picking
+However, to be able to include the fixes in PHP 8.5.0, a release manager (in
+this, me) needed to also apply the changes to the `PHP-8.5.0` branch.
+Technically, all of the release managers, even for a different version of PHP,
+have access to the patch-specific branches for PHP 8.5, but my understanding is
+that these branches are essentially "owned" by the PHP 8.5 release manager. In
+other words, if a PHP 8.4 release manager had sent one of these bug fixes, in
+theory they *could* have also updated the `PHP-8.5.0` branch, but they probably
+would not have.
+
+In addition to adding the commits to the `PHP-8.5.0` branch, I also needed to
+make sure that GitHub ran the standard suite of tests for the cherry-picked
+changes. GitHub is configured to run tests when commits are pushed to the
+`master` and version-specific branches (e.g. `PHP-8.5`), but not the
+patch-specific branches like `PHP-8.5.0`. Thankfully, the workflow for tests
+could also be triggered manually, specifying what branch to run against - I was
+able to thus tell GitHub to run the tests for the `PHP-8.5.0` branch.
+Thankfully, the tests all passed - had they failed, I'm not sure what I would
+have done.
+
+For a full comparison of the changes between RC4 and RC5, you can check the
+[comparison between the two tags][gh-comp-tags] on GitHub.
+
+## Process
+Once it was decided to add another release candidate, and the relevant changes
+were present in the `PHP-8.5.0` branch, the process to actually tag and announce
+the new release was essentially the same as normal. For those interested, my
+[blog entry explaining the reasons for PHP 8.5.0alpha4][blog-alpha4] includes
+a description of the process. The main difference was that, since there was
+already a patch-level branch created for the 8.5.0 GA release, the RC5 tag was
+created from that branch, rather than the main `PHP 8.5` branch.
+
+## Looking Ahead
+Fingers crossed, RC5 should be the last release candidate needed, and we will
+be able to announce the general availability of PHP 8.5 next week as scheduled.
+If not, we would need to delay by another **four weeks** in order to align with
+the release cycle of the maintenance branches.
+
+I'm also giving [a presentation about PHP 8.5 changes][talk-mergephp] later
+today through MergePHP. I need to make sure that my slides are updated to
+account for the changes we just made - specifically, I was going to talk about
+the output handler deprecation that is now no longer happening.
+
+[rc4-announce]: https://www.php.net/archive/2025.php#2025-11-06-1
+[rc5-announce]: https://www.php.net/archive/2025.php#2025-11-13-1
+[gh-20431]: https://github.com/php/php-src/issues/20431
+[gh-17951]: https://github.com/php/php-src/issues/17951
+[gh-20384]: https://github.com/php/php-src/issues/20384
+[rfc-84-dep]: https://wiki.php.net/rfc/deprecations_php_8_4
+[gh-18932]: https://github.com/php/php-src/pull/18932
+[fn-ob_gzhandler]: https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.ob-gzhandler.php
+[gh-comp-tags]: https://github.com/php/php-src/compare/php-8.5.0RC4..php-8.5.0RC5
+[blog-alpha4]: ./20250801-no-alpha-3
+[talk-mergephp]: https://www.mergephp.com/meetups/2025/11/13/php-8-5-new-features-from-the-source.html
diff --git a/tests/data/Home.html b/tests/data/Home.html
@@ -4,6 +4,8 @@
 Computer Science and Political Science and graduating <em>magna cum laude</em> in 2024 with a Bachelor of Science degree. As part of my work in Computer
 Science, I chose to write an honors thesis in my senior year, see <a href="./Thesis">here</a> for details. I continued at Tufts for graduate school, graduating in 2025 with
 a Master of Science in Computer Science degree.</p><p>See the links in the navigation bar above for more information about my
-experience.</p><h2 class="subsection-header">Contact</h2><ul><li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-scherzer-520539263/" target="_blank" class="external-link">LinkedIn</a></li><li>Email: <code>daniel.e.scherzer@gmail.com</code></li></ul><h2 class="subsection-header">Blog</h2><p>I also have a blog. You can see a full index of my posts <a href="/Blog">here</a>. My latest blog post is: </p><div class="blog-preview"><h3>Longhorn PHP 2025</h3><span class="blog-preview-date">Wednesday, 29 October 2025</span><p>Last week, I attended the Longhorn PHP conference in Austin, Texas. I had the
-opportunity to meet with a slew of open source contributors, listen to some
-amazing talks, and even present my own. <a href="/Blog/20251029-longhorn-php">Continue reading...</a></p></div></div><div class="des-footer"><div class="des-footer--content">Content is © 2025 Daniel Scherzer</div></div></body></html>
+experience.</p><h2 class="subsection-header">Contact</h2><ul><li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-scherzer-520539263/" target="_blank" class="external-link">LinkedIn</a></li><li>Email: <code>daniel.e.scherzer@gmail.com</code></li></ul><h2 class="subsection-header">Blog</h2><p>I also have a blog. You can see a full index of my posts <a href="/Blog">here</a>. My latest blog post is: </p><div class="blog-preview"><h3>The Story of PHP 8.5.0 Release Candidate 5</h3><span class="blog-preview-date">Thursday, 13 November 2025</span><p>PHP 8.5.0 Release Candidate 4, <a rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" class="external-link" href="https://www.php.net/archive/2025.php#2025-11-06-1">announced</a> last week, was expected
+to be the last release candidate (RC) of the PHP 8.5.0 development cycle, before
+the general availability release next week. But, earlier today I
+<a rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" class="external-link" href="https://www.php.net/archive/2025.php#2025-11-13-1">announced the release of PHP 8.5.0 RC5</a>. So, why was an extra
+release candidate needed? <a href="/Blog/20251113-release-candidate-5">Continue reading...</a></p></div></div><div class="des-footer"><div class="des-footer--content">Content is © 2025 Daniel Scherzer</div></div></body></html>
diff --git a/tests/data/blog-index.html b/tests/data/blog-index.html
@@ -1,5 +1,9 @@
 <!DOCTYPE html>
-<html lang="en"><head><link rel="icon" href="data:,"><meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1, minimum-scale=1"><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/resources/default-styles.css"><title>Blog index</title><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/resources/blog-styles.css"></head><body><div class="des-navbar"><a href="/Home">Home</a><a href="/files/Resume.pdf">Résumé</a><a href="/OpenSource">Open Source</a><a href="/Work">Work</a><strong class="des-strong-page-link">Blog</strong></div><div class="content-wrapper"><h1>Blog index</h1><div class="blog-preview"><h2>Longhorn PHP 2025</h2><span class="blog-preview-date">Wednesday, 29 October 2025</span><p>Last week, I attended the Longhorn PHP conference in Austin, Texas. I had the
+<html lang="en"><head><link rel="icon" href="data:,"><meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1, minimum-scale=1"><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/resources/default-styles.css"><title>Blog index</title><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/resources/blog-styles.css"></head><body><div class="des-navbar"><a href="/Home">Home</a><a href="/files/Resume.pdf">Résumé</a><a href="/OpenSource">Open Source</a><a href="/Work">Work</a><strong class="des-strong-page-link">Blog</strong></div><div class="content-wrapper"><h1>Blog index</h1><div class="blog-preview"><h2>The Story of PHP 8.5.0 Release Candidate 5</h2><span class="blog-preview-date">Thursday, 13 November 2025</span><p>PHP 8.5.0 Release Candidate 4, <a rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" class="external-link" href="https://www.php.net/archive/2025.php#2025-11-06-1">announced</a> last week, was expected
+to be the last release candidate (RC) of the PHP 8.5.0 development cycle, before
+the general availability release next week. But, earlier today I
+<a rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" class="external-link" href="https://www.php.net/archive/2025.php#2025-11-13-1">announced the release of PHP 8.5.0 RC5</a>. So, why was an extra
+release candidate needed? <a href="/Blog/20251113-release-candidate-5">Continue reading...</a></p></div><div class="blog-preview"><h2>Longhorn PHP 2025</h2><span class="blog-preview-date">Wednesday, 29 October 2025</span><p>Last week, I attended the Longhorn PHP conference in Austin, Texas. I had the
 opportunity to meet with a slew of open source contributors, listen to some
 amazing talks, and even present my own. <a href="/Blog/20251029-longhorn-php">Continue reading...</a></p></div><div class="blog-preview"><h2>Project Euler in Rust</h2><span class="blog-preview-date">Friday, 19 September 2025</span><p>After writing the obligatory &quot;Hello, World!&quot;, I wanted to work on something
 more substantial in Rust. When I learn a new programming language, my go-to