September 25, 2025: PostgreSQL 18 Released!

pg_builder 3.2 and pg_wrapper 3.3 released with support for Postgres 18

Posted on 2025-10-12 by Alexey Borzov
Related Open Source

I am pleased to announce the release of pg_builder and pg_wrapper packages for PHP updated for Postgres 18.

pg_builder 3.2

pg_builder is a query builder for Postgres backed by a partial PHP reimplementation of PostgreSQL's own SQL parser. It supports almost all syntax available in Postgres 18 for SELECT (and VALUES), INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, and MERGE queries.

With pg_builder it is possible to start with a manually written query, parse it into an Abstract Syntax Tree, add query parts (either as Node objects or as strings) to this tree or remove them, and finally convert the tree back to an SQL string.

Release highlights:

  • Support for new syntax of PostgreSQL 18: aliases for OLD and NEW in RETURNING clause of DML statements.
  • Node objects use WeakReference to keep a link to their parent node, this prevents circular references and allows garbage collection of AST fragments.

Full release notes

The package can be downloaded from GitHub or installed with Composer:

$ composer require sad_spirit/pg_builder

pg_wrapper 3.3

pg_wrapper provides converters for PostgreSQL data types and an object-oriented wrapper for PHP's native pgsql extension that uses these converters. Conversion of query result fields is done automatically using database metadata, query parameters may require specifying type.

For those types where a corresponding native PHP type or class is available it is used (text -> string, timestamp -> DateTimeImmutable, hstore -> associative array, etc.). For other types (geometric types, ranges) the package provides custom classes. If a base type can be converted, then composite types, arrays, ranges using it can be automatically handled as well.

Release highlights:

  • New error codes from PostgreSQL 18.

Full release notes

The package can be downloaded from GitHub or installed with Composer:

$ composer require sad_spirit/pg_wrapper