running a php app without the source code

[tamayo]

Hi, I had developed an app using LAMP, I need to install and run this app in computers that can't acces to my LAN, in fact, this computers belongs to the support people that would help to the users, now many of them are in contract process, so i would like to install the app in their pcs, so here it is my question:

1. is there a way to install it without the source code? some like a 'compiled' files?

regards

[planetphp]

php isn't made for this sort of thing. The source code has to be there to run and most often you need a webserver running with it.

If you want to protect your source code then you can use ioncube to encode it.

Otherwise the only suggestion would be to put the application up on the Internet with some hosting.

[bradgrafelman]

While a webserver is certainly not required to use PHP, the PHP interpeter itself definitely is.

If you want to compile your PHP source code into a standalone application (e.g. one that doesn't require the users to first install/setup PHP on their PCs)... well, there supposedly are options out there to do this (Google "PHP standalone application" or something of the sort), I personally have never used them. I tried once ages ago but gave up after running into too many issues with it.

EDIT: Having said all of the above, however, I do mostly agree with planetphp's "php isn't made for this sort of thing" statement.

Perhaps the real issue is that you should choose a better language for the task at hand? If you're trying to distribute the app to other PCs, for example, I would suggest staying away from interpreted languages (PHP, Python, etc.) unless you can ensure that the language interpreter is properly installed/configured on all of the destination PCs.

[dagon]

not recommending it, but there are a couple of php to exe tools