Support PHP 7.2 on latest Less.php 5.4 for use in WordPress plugin

[AH72KING]

When we use this lib for PHP version 7.2 it give this syntax fatal error
/vendor/wikimedia/less.php/lib/Less/Tree/Declaration.php on line 140

			$return = new Less_Tree_Declaration(
				$name,
				$evaldValue,
				$important,
				$this->merge,
				$this->index,
				$this->currentFileInfo,
				$this->inline,
				$variable,
			);

we need to remove last comma as that give fatal error in php 7.2

[Krinkle]

@AH72KING Which version of Less.php are you using, and how do you download/install it?

From the Changelog:

• The current version is Less.php 5.4.0, and requires PHP 8.1 or higher.
• Since Less.php 4.0.0, we require PHP 7.4 or higher.
• Less.php 3.2.1 was the last version that supported PHP 7.2.

When we use this lib for PHP version 7.2 it give this syntax fatal error /vendor/wikimedia/less.php/lib/Less/Tree/Declaration.php on line 140

This is expected because the code no longer supports PHP 7.2 (This would merely be the first of many more syntax errors if you try to fix it.)

Please upgrade to PHP 8.1 or later if you can. Older versions are unsupported by php.net and may be insecure.

If you must run an older version of PHP, then select an older version of Less.php. For example, Less.php 3.x for PHP 7.2, or up to Less.php 5.3.1 for PHP 7.4 and PHP 8.0.

If you use composer.json, then Composer can automatically find the last compatible version for you ("wikimedia/less": "^5.0.0" or "wikimedia/less": "^3.0.0"). If you specify an incompatible version, then Composer will automatically inform you (no need to run the code to get a syntax error).

[AH72KING]

@Krinkle
I understand that, I am using this in a wordpress plugin. My plugin support till PHP 7.2 (wordpress 4.9) to latest , so we cannot restrict the user to use higer or lower php version (I want to have less php that support from PHP 7.2 to latest PHP 8.4)

I tried another one but that give synatx error on php 8.3
leafo/lessphp#667

[Krinkle]

@AH72KING I'm sorry but we can't spend time supporting old PHP versions in the new releases. I recommend one of two solutions:

1. Commit three different Less.php directories to your plugin repository, and use a conditonal statement to import the right version. We provide an Autoloader for you so that it works without Composer. For example:

if (version_compare(PHP_VERSION, '8.1.0', '>=')) {
    // Less.php latest for PHP 8.1+
    require_once __DIR__ . '/lib/lessphp/lib/Less/Autoloader.php';
} elseif (version_compare(PHP_VERSION, '7.4.0', '>=')) {
    // Less.php v5.3.1 for PHP 7.4, 8.0
    require_once __DIR__ . '/lib/lessphp74/lib/Less/Autoloader.php';
} else {
    // Less.php v3.2.1 for PHP 7.2, 7.3
    require_once __DIR__ . '/lib/lessphp72/lib/Less/Autoloader.php';
}

Less_Autoloader::register();

// Make Less.php 5.0+ behave the same as older versions
$less = new Less_Parser( [ 'math' => 'always'] );

2. Install Composer dependencies during plugin activation/updating, instead of hardcoding in your package.

When you require "wikimedia/less.php": "3.x || 5.x" in composer.json, Composer automatically downloads the latest supported version that is supported by the current PHP version you are using. That means v3.2 on PHP 7.2, v5.3 on PHP 7.4 and v5.4 for PHP 8.1 and later.

The most common way people seem to use Composer with WordPress is to run composer install --no-dev on your personal machine and commit vendor to Git. If you bundle Composer and do this at runtime instead, you could automatically support the right version. Perhaps there's a tutorial or documentation on how to do this.