PHP and Oracle: Christopher Jones

If you're using PHP 5.2 I would generally recommend upgrading the OCI8 extension to 1.3 for better behavior, bug fixes and features. This new OCI8 has substantially refactored connection code and adds support for DRCP Connection Pooling, FAN, and External Authentication. PHP 5.2 is in maintenance mode so it is inappropriate to include OCI8 1.3 there by default. Instead, OCI8 needs to be upgraded using PECL.

See the newly updated Installing PHP and the Oracle Instant Client for Linux and Windows for details. You can use the instructions even if not using Instant Client. This note also links to PHP 5.2 Windows DLLs for OCI8 1.3.5 thanks to Pierre Joye.

Also in the PHP world, PHP 5.3 RC1 source code has just been tagged and release is imminent. Please test it when it is available in the next few days. PHP 5.3 already contains OCI8 1.3.