Thank you, but I knew about that command already and that didn't help. However, I did solve the problem with brute force. I will explain how I did it now. Firstly, the ./configure command in my original post was missing --enable-cli (required for 4.2.3 if you want to run php on the shell). Anyway, logged in as root and in root's home directory I did the following:
$ find / -name php
I then deleted every directory and file that was returned
Then I went to the directory where the source was and did a $ /bin/rm -r php_directory
Then I untarred the distribution again. CD'ed into the source directory and ran my ./configure command again, this time with the --enable-cli in place. It ran through ./configure fine, it ran through make fine, and it ran through make install fine.
I copied the php.ini file from the source directory to /etc/php.ini.
I went to root's home (cd /) and did another find / -name php. I saw the includes and the libraries and noticed that the php executable (the actual php program was in a sub-directory of the source.
I copied that php executable file to /usr/bin/php and then navigated to that directory to ensure that its permissions were similar to other executes in that directory.
Logging out of root and then in as myself, I then did a php -v and bim bam boom I got what I wanted:
[dreimann@localhost dreimann]$ php -v
4.2.3
[dreimann@localhost dreimann]$
Refer to http://www.php.net/manual/en/features.commandline.php on where to copy the php executable/binary.
Apache is happy as a clam too, so all is well.
That's what makes unix so cool....
