LP-Trel said:
Try to run phpBB 2.0.x, IPB 1.3.x, IPB 2.0.x, Joomla/Mambo, PHP-Nuke, X-Cart and others with PHP5. You'll see just how compatible it is.
ROFL! All of the above work absolutely 100% perfectly with PHP5 !!!!
(Been there ... done that!)
We have all of the applications you listed above running on our network
from hundreds of users accounts for quite some time with absolutely
no problems whatsoever. All of those programs work just fine under PHP5!
More times than not, there really is not any PHP compatibility issue but rather just the
incompetence (or just innocent ignorance) of the server administrators where those
programs are hosted. Most usually have PHP5 incorrectly installed but think it's
"running fine" when it actually is not.
If you install any of the programs you listed above on a host that has PHP5 properly installed
and configured, you won't have any problems running any of those application or most
anything else for that matter which also kind of throws the "incompatible with PHP5"
theory right out the window!
Many older and popular scripts still require PHP4 to run and that will still be the case for awhile. Support of PHP5 is becoming required, but I still think that PHP4 support is necessary for now.
Wrong! There is virtually no programs out there that requires PHP4 to run
or more specifically virtually none that would not otherwise work perfectly
fine running under PHP5.
Illustrating my point is the fact that you listed a bunch of programs in
the last section above that you thought were not compatible with PHP5
which are actually 100% fully compatible with PHP5 and have absolutely
no problems running whatsoever! Been there ... done that.
Also, PHP5 has been out in official release for more than a year already
which is way more than enough time for updates not that any would
really be required with most programs.
The "application/x-httpd-php" handling is the least of your worries if you actually want to run them side by side as modules. Without a patch to the Apache source code to rework some of the symbol handling and other internal DSO handling you won't be able to even start Apache (this will depend on your kernel and OS) with both loading in the httpd.conf.
Thanks for the re-cap of what I already said!
You just said the same thing that I just said in my last post .... Duh!
If you think I said to run both as modules then you obviously didn't read my post!
With a proper configuration both as a module, both as a CGI, or one as a module with the other as a CGI is perfectly safe. My service has been using both configurations (both as a module and both as a CGI) on different servers since about 3 weeks after PHP 5.0.0 was released.
Part of your problem running some applications on PHP5 is because
you are running both PHP4 and PHP5. Yes you can run one as a module
and one as a CGI to have both running at the same time but because
of a few bugs in the way Apache handles certain things, it still causes
conflicts between the two PHP versions and that is the primary source
of what you erroneously mistook as PHP5 not being compatible with
certain programs is in reality actually PHP4 on the system causing a few
small parts of PHP5 not to function correctly. If you are only running
PHP5 then many of those conflicts are gone and you will find that PHP5 is
suddenly a lot more "compatible" than you thought.
The order of your module loading in httpd.conf also makes a big difference
as does the configuration directives used in your PHP.INI config file.
Speaking of which, another item is that your PHP5 and PHP4 **CANNOT**
share the same PHP.INI file! Yes, I know you "CAN" do it but you shouldn't
because the configuration for PHP4 is not really designed for PHP5 and using
a configuration file designed only for PHP4 has also been known to cause
problems for PHP5 operating correctly. There are some directives you should
change in the PHP.INI when installing PHP5 so it is best to have 2 separate
configuration files if you are actually running both PHP4 and PHP5
(which again I do not recommend that you do)
Note: I've already added in PHP6 support via the development version.
As I said, I don't recommend running multiple instances of PHP on
any Apache based server. I could explain the specific details of the
reasons for the reasons behind that and the exact specific problems
with Apache but that is pretty technical and an extensive topic in
and of itself and these posts are already getting long enough especially
given that this post probably is reaching world record length already.
LP-Trel, I've known you a long time on here and if you would like help
resolving out the issues with your PHP5 installation, I'd be glad to lend
a hand to help you get your PHP5 running as well as ours.
PS: If it makes you feel any better though, we went through a period
about a year ago where we made all the same mistakes as yourself and
many of the other hosts out there just trying to support PHP5. We even
did the "run one as CGI and one as module" trick until we later discovered
that was the source of some of the alleged PHP5 incompatibilities. However,
we learned from our mistakes and finally discovered what the real issues
where and it turned out all our original thoughts of PHP5 incompatibilities
just like yours were all complete misconceptions and totally wrong!
