phpMyAdmin 5.0.0 is released

2019-12-26

Welcome to the release of phpMyAdmin version 5.0.0. This release is occurring simultaneously with version 4.9.3; except for users with old PHP installations, version 5.0.0 is the recommended version.

This release includes many new features and improvements from the 4.9 series. We expect to maintain version 4 in a security capacity to support users with older PHP installations. For full details about supported versions and end of life dates, see the "Supported versions" grid at https://www.phpmyadmin.net/downloads/.

With this release, we are removing support of old PHP versions (5.5, 5.6, 7.0, and HHVM). These versions are outdated and are no longer supported by the PHP team.

Version 5.0 includes many coding improvements that modernize the interface. Many of these changes are transparent to users, but make the code easier to maintain. Much of this refactoring work is completed by our contract developer, Maurício Meneghini Fauth. We always consider applications for new (paid) contract developers, see https://www.phpmyadmin.net/contractor/ for program details.

Some of the changes and new features include:

• Enable columns names by default for CSV exports
• Add Metro theme
• Automatically add the index when creating an auto increment column
• Improvements to exporting views
• Prompt the user for confirmation before running an UPDATE query with no WHERE clause
• Improvements to how errors are show to the user (including allowing easier copying of the error text to the clipboard)
• Added keystrokes to clear the line (ctrl+l) and clear the entire console window (ctrl+u)
• Use charset 'windows-1252' when export format is MS Excel

There are several more changes, please refer to the ChangeLog file included with the release for full details.

Known shortcomings:

Due to changes in the MySQL authentication method, PHP versions prior to 7.4 are unable to authenticate to a MySQL 8.0 or newer server (our tests show the problem actually began with MySQL 8.0.11). This relates to a PHP bug https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=76243. There is a workaround, that is to set your user account to use the current-style password hash method, mysql_native_password. This unfortunate lack of coordination has caused the incompatibility to affect all PHP applications, not just phpMyAdmin. For more details, you can see our bug tracker item at https://github.com/phpmyadmin/phpmyadmin/issues/14220. We suggest upgrading your PHP installation to take advantage of the authentication methods.

Downloads are available now at https://phpmyadmin.net/downloads/

Our work would not be possible without the donations of our generous sponsor, and this release in particular is brought to you thanks to the hard work of our Google Summer of Code students and many other contributors.

The phpMyAdmin team