PHP 8.4 introduces the native #[\Deprecated] attribute, bringing the language's built-in deprecation mechanism to user-defined functions, methods, and class constants. Previously, developers relied on PHPDoc annotations (@deprecated) which IDEs could read, but PHP itself ignored at runtime. Now, calling a deprecated feature will emit an official E_USER_DEPRECATED warning.

PHP 8.4 Example:

PHP
class LegacyApi
{
    #[\Deprecated(reason: "use fetchV2() instead", replacement: "%class%->fetchV2()")]
    public function fetchV1(): array
    {
        return ['data' => 'legacy'];
    }

    public function fetchV2(): array
    {
        return ['data' => 'modern'];
    }
}

$api = new LegacyApi();
$api->fetchV1(); // Triggers E_USER_DEPRECATED warning

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