Alison Holloway's Blog

Zend have just released a new version of Zend Core for Oracle. This is a prebuilt and tested stack of Apache, PHP and Oracle Instant Client. If you haven't used it before, you will like the easy setup. I promise.

Try this with an existing Oracle database install, or download and install Oracle Database XE, our free database.

Zend Core for Oracle is also supported with Oracle Enterprise Linux.

Zend Core for Oracle release 2.0 includes PHP 5.2.1, the refactored OCI8 driver, Oracle Instant Client, and an optional Apache HTTP Server 2.2.2.

Zend Core for Oracle is supported by Zend on the following operating systems: 

* Oracle Enterprise Linux 
* X86 running SLES9 or RHEL3 or RHEL4 
* X86 running Windows XP/2003/Vista 
* X86-64 running Windows Vista in 32bit mode 
* X86-64 running SLES9 or RHEL3 or RHEL4 
* pSeries running AIX 5.2 or 5.3 
* Sun Solaris Sparc 8, 9 10

The web servers that are supported are: 

* Apache 1.3.x (except on Windows Vista), Apache 2.x 
* Oracle HTTP Server 10.1.2.0.0 (on Linux and Windows x86) 
* Microsoft IIS 5, 6, 7

Zend Core for Oracle is supported (by Zend) against Oracle Database 10g and 9i. That means that you can have a fully supported stack of database, web server and PHP.

If you aren't sure how to use it, or want more information on install, configuration, and use, go and have a read of the Underground PHP and Oracle Manual. Yet another handy resource for all things PHP and Oracle. And another shameless plug from me.

Don't forget there are lots of articles, FAQs, downloads and links at the OTN PHP Developer Center.

Since I've started blogging about little idiosyncracies I've been experiencing in PHP, I've been getting feedback that you want more. Okay. I'll start adding little tid-bits that might help out someone out there. So here's one I found (again) today.

While testing the bug fix I mentioned in an blog entry last week, I found that trying to load the phpinfo() script caused my browser to try loading the file as an application. That is, it tried to download the file, rather than execute the script. This happened in Firefox and IE. For those not familiar with phpinfo(), it's a function that displays the setup of PHP, including loaded extensions, environment variables, PHP variables, and so on. Here's what you would use:

phpinfo.php

<?php

phpinfo();

?>

I'm getting side-tracked. You'll likely all know how to use this function, but that was for newbies.

So, if you try to load this script using localhost in the URL, your browser will not know how to deal with it, nor will PHP, so it strangely asks you what to do with it. This doesn't happen to my other PHP scripts. So, don't use:

http://localhost/phpinfo.php

Use

http://127.0.0.1/phpinfo.php

If this is far too simple a blog, let me know. I'll get back into the more unusual stuff.