"In PHP 6, everything by default will be Unicode," such as default string types, said PHP core developer Andrei Zmievski during a keynote presentation at the 2009 Zend/PHP conference in San Jose, Calif.  The PHP 6 platform also will feature the ability to use Unicode characters for identifiers.

Unicode for PHP addresses globalization, Zmievski said in an interview after his talk. Developers will want to write their applications so they can be deployed in other markets, he said.  "If you think you can develop your application only for your particular market, you're really missing out on business opportunities elsewhere," Zmievski said.

"Unicode makes it easier to write applications that can deal with various alphabets and encoding," said Andi Gutmans, a PHP core developer and CEO of PHP tools vendor , in an interview at the conference. "It makes it easier write an application that can work as well in Chinese and Japanese as it can in English."

PHP core developers still need to complete development of Unicode items in areas like cookie access and PDO (PHP Database Objects.)