Mail in Windows? php.ini in PHP4?

Anon

I am way to frustrated trying to figure this out, so I am just going to ask.

Please help.

I am trying to configure php4 with PWS4 in windows 98.

Can someone tell me how to get mail working.

I have no php.ini file that I can find.

I have tried everything that I can find, I even downloaded a sendmail clone program, but when I use some code I found with popen() to open a pipe to it PWS dies on me and wont serve pages till I reboot.

If anyone can help me I would relaly appreciate it.

Thanks.

-Brian

Anon

Hey Brian,

From what you write, I'm going to guess you're new to the PHP scene. But I don't want to insult your intelligence either, so if what I write is just WAY too dumbed down, please feel free to say so.

For quick starters, I recently wrote a similar writeup on how to get PHP up & running which you can read at

http://www.phpbuilder.com/forum/read.php3?num=4&id=523&thread=443

It ain't pretty, but it's a start. If any of it doesn't make sense, please let me know. Now, onto your question regarding "to get mail working", I'm not exactly sure what it is you're looking for. So I'm going to assume that you're talking about making use of the mail() function in PHP. If so, check out

http://www.phpbuilder.com/forum/read.php3?num=4&id=520&thread=447

which also came up quite recently. And be sure to modify the [mail function] section of the PHP.INI file which should now be residing in your C:\WINDOWS directory. For example, assuming you had an e-mail address at <me@here.com> and the SMTP server that you normally configure your e-mail clients to use to send e-mail is smtp.here.com, you would change that section of PHP.INI to read:

...
[mail function]
SMTP = smtp.here.com
; MODIFIED from 'localhost'
; for win32 only
sendmail_from = me@here.com
; MODIFIED from 'me@localhost.com'
; for win32 only
;sendmail_path = ;for unix only, may supply arguments as well
; (default is sendmail -t)
...

And that's all she wrote. I've used the mail() function and it works fine for me under NT4 SP5 running IIS4 (PWS4's big brother).

Also, I'm not sure if you've tried this yet, but you may find the answer to your questions have been posted (often more than once) by simply doing a search. This lets you get your problem resolved quicker since you don't need to wait for an answer via e-mail. Just a thought.

Anon

Hey.. I think you should try apache.. It's quite better than pws4.. I've gone through the same experience and recommend you download apache. Windows version.
I'm new to it as well and would like to share experiences with everybody.. ICQ me.
65009392

Anon

Thanks for the reply Frank. Actually, the problem is that the windows zip that I downloaded from php.net does not have a php.ini that is installed automatically. It is also not mentioned anywhere in any of the installation docs or readme. There is a php.ini.dist file included in the zip which must be extracted and then put in the right place.

PHP works fine without the .ini file, except you are somewhat limited in its configuration (as I learned today).

All is well now though, with the .ini file installed and named properly I was able to put the settings in with no problem. All the documentation I ever found talked about a php3.ini for php3, and php4 was never covered. Since I didnt have a php.ini file, I thought they had done away with it and I was missing some secret configuration script or something.

Anyway, thanks.

-Brian

Anon

Brian,

Actually, just to clarify a point, while it is true that the .ZIP file doesn't automatically "install" a PHP.INI file for you, the truth is that there really IS no install. It's quite spartan really. You simply decompress the files and must do all the dirty work yourself by following the steps in README.TXT. For those used to Windows installers, this does really seem a bit antiquated, but I'm sure in time someone will come up with a nice installer to remove the headaches.

Anyway, in that readme file, you'll notice the instructions at one point say

"Installation Notes for Microsoft PWS 4.0

Install the php.ini file and the DLLs as mentioned above.
..."

Well, by reading "above", you'll find there are instructions on where to place the .DLL files, and then in the "Installation Notes for IIS 4.0 and 5.0" you'll see how they talk about

"- If you wish to change any defaults, copy either the php.ini-dist or
php.ini-optimized files into your Windows directory, and rename it to
'php.ini'. You can then modify any of the directives inside it."

But before you misunderstand, I only mention this because "technically" they have given you all the instructions you need. However, I wholeheartedly agree that, especially for those not familiar with some form of Unix (where this kind of "install" is quite common), these instructions leave a bit to be desired. Logically someone installing PHP under Win9x/PWS wouldn't think that "above" meant reading information in the IIS section. Unfortunately the writer of the readme.txt file assumed everyone would just read ALL of the file before proceeding (again, something you get used to doing in the *nix world due to docs not always being up to par with what you might expect). And currently the best way to fully understand PHP is to read...a lot. :-)

I am sure at some point in the future the good folks behind PHP will revise these files to make them more "palatable", and I believe there is already someone out there who has started working on an .EXE installer for PHP to make the install about as easy as any other Windows install. For example, I notice the online PHP manual ( http://www.php.net/manual ) includes a section

http://www.php.net/manual/install-windows95-nt.php

which explains in more detail than the readme how to install PHP. It's a step.

I just hope you don't let the rudimentary nature of the current install process taint your view of PHP's abilities. It really is a cool scripting language and I think you'll find the community support is first rate. And in time I believe PHP will really become, even more than it is already, a key language for website integration. (I'll step off my soapbox now. :-) )

Anyway, good luck to you. Happy coding. :-)