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Open Source Technologies

Notes Directives in the php.ini file come in two forms: values and flags. Value directives take the form
of a directive name and a value separated by an equal sign. Possible values vary from directive
to directive. Flag directives take the form of a directive name and a positive or negative term
separated by an equal sign. Positive terms include 1, On, Yes, and TRue. Negative terms include
0, Off, No, and False. Whitespace is ignored.
You can change your php.ini settings at any time, but after you do, you’ll need to restart the
server for the changes to take effect. At some point, take time to read through the php.ini file
on your own to see the types of things that can be configured.
5.4 Testing Installation

Installing PHP on your development PC allows you to safely create and test a web application
without affecting the data or systems on your live website. This article describes PHP installation
as a module within the Windows version of Apache 2.2. Mac and Linux users will probably
have it installed already.
All-in-One packages

There are some excellent all-in-one Windows distributions that contain Apache, PHP, MySQL and
other applications in a single installation file, e.g. XAMPP (including a Mac version), WampServer
and Web Developer. There is nothing wrong with using these packages, although manually
installing Apache and PHP will help you learn more about the system and its configuration options.

The PHP Installer

Although an installer is available from php.net, I would recommend the manual installation if
you already have a web server configured and running.

Manual Installation
Manual installation offers several benefits:

• backing up, reinstalling, or moving the web server can be achieved in seconds and
• you have more control over PHP and Apache configuration.

Step 1: extract the files
We will install the PHP files to C:\php, so create that folder and extract the contents of the ZIP
file into it.
PHP can be installed anywhere on your system, but you will need to change the paths referenced
in the following steps.
Step 2: configure php.ini
Copy C:\php\php.ini-recommended to C:\php\php.ini. There are several lines you will need
to change in a text editor (use search to find the current setting).
Define the extension directory:

extension_dir = ”C:\php\ext”
Enable extensions. This will depend on the libraries you want to use, but the following extensions
should be suitable for the majority of applications (remove the semi-colon comment):

1. extension=php_curl.dll
2. extension=php_gd2.dll

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