Why installation of PHP so difficult?

Anon

Why are they making the installation of PHP so difficult? Instead of keeping on improving the functionalities of PHP, why don't they spare sometime in making the PHP easier to be installed?

If somebody is going to argue with me that why is this a problem, hey, if the installation were easy, then why would we have this "Install Help" listed in phpbuilder.com, along with other "necessary" helps like coding and database?

I know PHP is free. But something is free doesn't mean that we can't say something about it, or we can't comment about it, or ask for more from it.

I never encountered program installation problem in my life before. And installation of PHP is killing me. Why can't somebody do something about it? I'm hoping that one day when we come back to phpbuilder.com and visit its forums, we no longer seeing "Install Help" under the forums list.

Anyway, I have to go back and try my installation again. Sigh!!

PS: ColdFusion is also a scripting language like PHP, but it never gave me a problem. Installation of ColdFusion was a breeze. OK, maybe because we pay big bucks for it.

Anon

If you're installing on Windows, I and a couple of other people have built installers that we update when any of the components release new versions. Mine is at http://sourceforge.net/projects/phptriad. The others are listed on zend.com and the bottom of the main page here at phpbuilder.

Anon

I guess I may try the Phptriad 9 MB download to try to get at 1 MB PHP4 download to work, but it seems like it might have been easier to just have some documentation on the httpd.conf file settings.

I just bought two books "PHP fast&easy web development" and "PHP4 Bible" that discuss this. Interestingly, their approaches are different.

For Win95 / Apache / PHP4, I agree with Eugene, it should not have to be this difficult. While I'm here trying to find an alternative to ColdFusion, I had the same experience. CF had clear instructions and I just added a couple of lines to the httpd.conf, copied a file and - it worked.

Are their any directions in the download or on the net for the settings for Apache / Win95 / PHP4 - I can't seem to find any?

In case you haven't gathered, I really don't know much about Apache or PHP. Are the installation problems a PHP4 issue or does PHP3 have the same issues?

Thanks - I'm really hoping that PHP will give me the basic functionality of ColdFusion, but with a wider choice of hosters.

Dave

Anon

The download is 9MB because it installs Apache (3MB from apache.org), MySQL (9MB from mysql.com), PHP (1MB from php.net) and PHPMyAdmin (negligible). Getting all of the pieces separately would be even more than 9MB. In all, I'd say getting a fully functional installer in 9MB isn't too bad. I know that some of the other installers out there are smaller, but I'm just redistributing exactly what those sites are, just installing and configuring it.

Keep in mind that Windows is not the platform of choice for the authors of those packages. I happen to use PHP on 4-5 Windows machines and built the installer as a sort of backup for myself.

Your post seems to indicate that there was NO documentation on how to set the httpd.conf file settings. There IS documentation that comes with PHP and on php.net as well that details the settings to change.

Your post also seems to indicate that you have two distinct issues: it's difficult and you don't want to download that which makes it easy. I figured you'd seen the documentation at php.net and were unable to get it running, so I suggested one of the installers. Anyway, here's what php.net says for installing on Win32/Apache.

You must edit your srm.conf or httpd.conf to configure Apache to work with the PHP CGI binary.

Although there can be a few variations of configuring PHP under Apache, this one is simple enough to be used by the newcomer. Please consult the Apache Docs for further configuration directives.

ScriptAlias /php/ "c:/path-to-php-dir/"

AddType application/x-httpd-php .php

AddType application/x-httpd-php .phtml

Action application/x-httpd-php "/php/php.exe"

To use the source code highlighting feature, simply create a PHP script file and stick this code in: <?php show_source ("original_php_script.php"); ?>. Substitute original_php_script.php with the name of the file you wish to show the source of. (this is only one way of doing it). Note: On Win-Apache all back slashes in a path statement such as: "c:\directory\file.ext", must be converted to forward slashes.

Anon

php install is WAY to hard!!!!

why does my compile fail?
config: ./configure --with-apxs=/www/bin/apxs --with-mysql

i don't even want gd support at this point!

here is the error:
Making all in gd
make[2]: Entering directory /home/php-4.0.2/ext/gd' make[3]: Entering directory/home/php-4.0.2/ext/gd'
/bin/sh /home/php-4.0.2/libtool --silent --mode=compile gcc -I. -I/home/php-4.0
.2/ext/gd -I/home/php-4.0.2 -I/home/php-4.0.2/main -I/www/include -I/home/php-4.
0.2/Zend -I/home/php-4.0.2 -I/usr/local/include/freetype -I/home/php-4.0.2/ext/m
ysql/libmysql -I/home/php-4.0.2/ext/xml/expat/xmltok -I/home/php-4.0.2/ext/xml/e
xpat/xmlparse -DXML_BYTE_ORDER=12 -g -O2 -c gd.c
gd.c: In function php_if_imagecreatefromgif': gd.c:500:gdImageCreateFromGif' undeclared (first use in this function)
gd.c:500: (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once
gd.c:500: for each function it appears in.)
gd.c: In function php_if_imagegif': gd.c:657:gdImageGif' undeclared (first use in this function)
make[3]: [gd.lo] Error 1
make[3]: Leaving directory /home/php-4.0.2/ext/gd' make[2]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1 make[2]: Leaving directory/home/php-4.0.2/ext/gd'
make[1]: [all-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/php-4.0.2/ext'
make: *** [all-recursive] Error 1

what have i done wrong?

Anon

Thanks for the reply. I must say, it did not take very long after making my post until several people helped me.

I did not mean to imply that the 9 MB installer was not a good product, I was just frustrated that I could not find the directions to change the httpd.conf file in Apache - I expected to find them in the readme.text file for PHP4 - if they were there it would help the confusion - posts are happening most days.

Things seem to be working for me fine now for Apache / Win95 / PHP4. I just wanted to try out "hello world" and perhaps have an environment to test PHP4 scripts before sending to a remote server.

Thanks for your help - the response on this forum has been great.

Dave

Anon

Hi!
I've seen thees advises (like
ScriptAlias /php/ "c:/path-to-php-dir/"
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
AddType application/x-httpd-php .phtml
Action application/x-httpd-php "/php/php.exe
etc.) many times in different forums.
But my PHP is still not working:
Apache running o.k., but .php file can't be parced.
Any fresh ideas?
Cheers.
Stas.

Anon

Are you getting a "Cannot Parse..." message or do you see the <?...?> code in your browser?
If your getting a "Cannot Parse" error, it sounds like PHP is getting called but there's something wrong with your PHP script.
If you only see the PHP code in your browser, my guess is the following:

make sure the following lines are pointing to the appropriate directories.

are as follows, but yours will probably be different:

ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ "d:/Programs.95/ApacheGroup/Apache/cgi-bin/"
ScriptAlias /php4 "D:/php4/"

make sure you include all the PHP extensions you want PHP to processes

in the following line. My web provider only has .php3 included in this

setting, so .php and .php4 will not get processed.

AddType application/x-httpd-php .phtml .php .php3 .php4
AddType application/x-httpd-php-source .phps

If your ScriptAlias was setup correctly then the following line will point to

php.exe in the correct directory:

Action application/x-httpd-php /php4/php.exe

Hope this helps,
brian

Anon

Try removing the browscap.ini file from your c:\windows directory might work. dunno why or what other consequences might occur.... worked for me, though.

Anon

Not meaning to gripe, but I installed PHP with MySql very fast and nearly effortlessly. I went to Linux for the speed.

I can not get PHP to recompile on RedHat 7.2 with MySql support. My latest error is "cannot find output from lex: giving up." At least I got past the Bison not found error by installing it from the RPM. I should have known about Bison?? What is the magic key to getting this installed? What do I need to add to my computer. I truly believe that this will work someday! It's 3:35 a.m. so time for some sleep.