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Web Technologies-I

Notes 1.3.7 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. In this we describe 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, the manual installation if you already have a web
server configured and running.
1.3.8 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
3. extension=php_mbstring.dll
4. extension=php_mysql.dll
5. extension=php_mysqli.dll
6. extension=php_pdo.dll
7. extension=php_pdo_mysql.dll
8. extension=php_xmlrpc.dll

If you want to send emails using the PHP mail () function, enter the details of
an SMTP server (your ISP’s server should be suitable):

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