PHP RFC: Oniguruma maintenance was end

• Version: 0.1
• Date: 2025-08-21
• Author: Yuya Hamada youkidearitai@gmail.com
• Status: Draft
• Implementation: https://github.com/php/php-src/pull/19258

Oniguruma maintenance was end at 2025-04-24. PHP uses mbregex(mb_ereg ...) functions. We need to decide the future of this group of functions.

It is likely that the following points need to be decided.

1. Maintenance version: 8.2. 8.3, 8.4, 8.5
2. Deprecate version: 8.6(Next to 8.5)
3. Drop support to 9.0

It is likely that the following points need to be decided.

• Maintenance version: 8.2. 8.3, 8.4, 8.5
• Deprecate version: 8.6(Next to 8.5)
• Drop support to 9.0

Deprecate and drop mbregex functions:

• mb_ereg
• mb_ereg_match
• mb_ereg_replace
• mb_ereg_replace_callback
• mb_ereg_search
• mb_ereg_search_getpos
• mb_ereg_search_getregs
• mb_ereg_search_init
• mb_ereg_search_pos
• mb_ereg_search_regs
• mb_ereg_search_setpos
• mb_eregi
• mb_eregi_replace
• mb_regex_encoding
• mb_regex_set_options
• mb_split

Constants:

• MB_ONIGURUMA_VERSION

php.ini options:

• mbstring.regex_retry_limit
• mbstring.regex_stack_limit

We can not use mbregex functions.

8.6

Mbregex

Describe the impact to CLI, Development web server, embedded PHP etc.

https://github.com/php/php-src/issues/18467

This section should outline areas that you are not planning to work on in the scope of this RFC, but that might be iterated upon in the future by yourself or another contributor.

This helps with long-term planning and ensuring this RFC does not prevent future work.

After the RFC is implemented, this section should contain:

1. the version(s) it was merged into
2. a link to the git commit(s)
3. a link to the PHP manual entry for the feature

Links to external references, discussions, or RFCs.

Keep this updated with features that were discussed on the mail lists.

If there are major changes to the initial proposal, please include a short summary with a date or a link to the mailing list announcement here, as not everyone has access to the wikis' version history.