diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 66e4360..97d2c37 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -1,4 +1,7 @@
+# General Ignores
 /vendor
 composer.lock
 /phpunit/
+# IDEs
 .idea/
+/nbproject/
diff --git a/.travis.yml b/.travis.yml
index 5cec0b1..baff00d 100644
--- a/.travis.yml
+++ b/.travis.yml
@@ -1,11 +1,27 @@
 language: php
 php:
+  - '5.4'
+  - '5.5'
   - '5.6'
   - '7.0'
+  - '7.1'
+  - '7.2'
   - hhvm
   - nightly
+matrix:
+  include:
+    - php: "5.3"
+      dist: precise
+git:
+#there should rarely be a need to clone 50 deep, so this is just reducing build-time
+  depth: 5
 before_script:
+# no need to provide coverage more than once and no need for the speedbump otherwise
+  - if [[ ${TRAVIS_PHP_VERSION:0:3} != "7.1" ]]; then phpenv config-rm xdebug.ini || true ; fi
+# no need to test formatting more than once and php_codesniffer does not work with older php
+  - if [[ ${TRAVIS_PHP_VERSION:0:3} != "5.6" ]]; then composer remove --dev squizlabs/php_codesniffer ; fi
   - composer install
 script:
-  - composer check-style
-  - composer test
+# since it's disabled otherwise...
+  - if [[ ${TRAVIS_PHP_VERSION:0:3} == "5.6" ]]; then composer check-style ; fi
+  - composer test
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/composer.json b/composer.json
index 0c42047..deb4187 100644
--- a/composer.json
+++ b/composer.json
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@
     "type": "project",
     "description": "PHP Regular expressions made easy",
     "require": {
-        "php": ">=5.6"
+        "php": ">=5.3"
     },
     "require-dev": {
         "phpunit/phpunit": "* >=4",
diff --git a/src/VerbalExpressions.php b/src/VerbalExpressions.php
index 38832ac..6407aa6 100644
--- a/src/VerbalExpressions.php
+++ b/src/VerbalExpressions.php
@@ -297,8 +297,9 @@ public function any($value)
      * @return VerbalExpressions
      * @throws \InvalidArgumentException
      */
-    public function range(... $args)
+    public function range()
     {
+        $args = func_get_args();
         $arg_num = count($args);
 
         if ($arg_num%2 != 0) {
@@ -483,8 +484,8 @@ public function test($value)
         // php doesn't have g modifier so we remove it if it's there and call preg_match_all()
         if (strpos($this->modifiers, 'g') !== false) {
             $this->modifiers = str_replace('g', '', $this->modifiers);
-
-            return preg_match_all($this->getRegex(), $value);
+            $matches = array();//because it's not optional in <5.4
+            return preg_match_all($this->getRegex(), $value, $matches);
         }
 
         return (bool) preg_match($this->getRegex(), $value);