php 5.6 and 7

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Remove all the stock php packages

List installed php packages with dpkg -l | grep php| awk '{print $2}' |tr "\n" " " then remove unneeded packages with sudo aptitude purge your_packages_here or if you want to directly remove them all use :

sudo apt-get purge `dpkg -l | grep php| awk '{print $2}' |tr "\n" " "`
Add the PPA

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php
If you get add-apt-repository: command not found run the following command first :

sudo apt-get install software-properties-common
Install your PHP Version

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install php5.6
You can install php5.6 modules too for example

sudo apt-get install php5.6-mbstring php5.6-mcrypt php5.6-mysql php5.6-xml
Verify your version

If you have installed php5.6-cli

sudo php -v
If you don't have php5.6-cli, put this on a .php file

<?php 
      //outputs php configuration info
      phpinfo(); 
?>

Switch PHP version:

Switch PHP version:

From php5.6 to php7.0:
Apache:
sudo a2dismod php5.6 ; sudo a2enmod php7.0 ; sudo service apache2 restart
CLI:
sudo update-alternatives --set php /usr/bin/php7.0
From php7.0 to php5.6:
Apache:
sudo a2dismod php7.0 ; sudo a2enmod php5.6 ; sudo service apache2 restart
CLI:
sudo update-alternatives --set php /usr/bin/php5.6