PHP/Windows Installation Notes ============================== Installation on Windows 9x/Me/NT/2000/XP systems ============================================= There are two main ways to install PHP for Windows: either manually or by using the InstallShield installer. Windows InstallShield ===================== The Windows PHP installer is available from the downloads page at www.php.net. This installs the CGI version of PHP and, for IIS, PWS, and Xitami, configures the web server as well. Note that this version does *NOT* install any extensions or server api versions of PHP. Install your selected HTTP server on your system and make sure that it works. Run the executable installer and follow the instructions provided by the installation wizard. Two types of installation are supported - standard, which provides sensible defaults for all the settings it can, and advanced, which asks questions as it goes along. The installation wizard gathers enough information to set up the php.ini file and configure the web server to use PHP. For IIS and also PWS on NT Workstation, a list of all the nodes on the server with script map settings is displayed, and you can choose those nodes to which you wish to add the PHP script mappings. Once the installation has completed the installer will inform you if you need to restart your system, restart the server, or just start using PHP. Windows Manual installation from zip binary distribution ======================================================== This install guide will help you manually install and configure PHP on your Windows 9x/Me/NT/2000/XP webservers. This guide was compiled by Bob Silva. The original version can be found at http://www.umesd.k12.or.us/php/win32install.html This guide provides manual installation support for: Personal Web Server 3 and 4 or newer Internet Information Server 3 and 4 or newer Apache 1.3.x OmniHTTPd 2.0b1 and up Oreilly Website Pro Xitami Netscape Enterprise Server, iPlanet PHP 4 for Windows comes in two flavours - a CGI executable (php-cgi.exe), and several SAPI modules (for exapmle php4isapi.dll). The latter form is new to PHP 4, and provides significantly improved performance and some new functionality. However, please note that the SAPI modules are *NOT* yet considered to be production quality. In particular, with the ISAPI module, you are likely to encounter serious reliability problems especially on platforms older than W2K - you may witness a lot of server 500 errors and suffer from other server modules such as ASP also failing. You have been warned! The reason for this is that the PHP SAPI modules are using the thread-safe version of the PHP code, which is new to PHP 4, and has not yet been tested and pounded enough to be considered completely stable, and there are actually a few known bugs. On the other hand, some people have reported very good results with the SAPI modules, and there a few reports of problems with the Apache module version. In short - your mileage may vary; If you need absolute stability, trade the performance of the SAPI modules with the stability of the CGI executable. If you choose one of the SAPI modules and use Windows 95, be sure to download the DCOM update from http://download.microsoft.com/msdownload/dcom/95/x86/en/dcom95.exe" For the ISAPI module, an ISAPI 4.0 compliant Web server is required (tested on IIS 4.0, PWS 4.0 and IIS 5.0). IIS 3.0 is *NOT* supported; You should download and install the Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack with IIS 4.0 if you want native PHP support. The following steps should be performed on all installations before the server specific instructions. Extract the distribution file to a directory of your choice. C:\PHP\ is a good start. You need to ensure that the dlls which php uses can be found. The precise dlls involved depend on which web server you use and whether you want to run php as a cgi or as a server module. php4ts.dll is always used. If you are using a server module (e.g. isapi or apache) then you will need the relevent dll from the sapi folder. If you are using any php extension dlls then you will need those as well. To make sure that the dlls can be found, you can either copy them to the system directory (e.g. winnt/system32 or windows/system) or you can make sure that they live in the same directory as the main php executable or dll your web server will use (e.g. php-cgi.exe, php4apache.dll). Copy the file, php.ini-dist to your %WINDOWS% directory on Windows 95/98 or to your %SYSTEMROOT% directory under Windows NT, Windows 2000 or Windows XP and rename it to php.ini. Your %WINDOWS% or %SYSTEMROOT% directory is typically: c:\windows for Windows 95/98 c:\winnt or c:\winnt40 for NT/2000/XP servers We will refer to %SYSTEMROOT% for both %WINDOWS% or %SYSTEMROOT% throughout the text. Edit your php.ini file: You will need to change the 'extension_dir' setting to point to your php-install-dir, or where you have placed your 'php_*.dll' files. ex: c:\php If you are using OmniHTTPd, do not follow the next step. Set the 'doc_root' to point to your webservers document_root. ex: c:\apache\htdocs or c:\webroot Choose which extensions you would like to load when PHP starts, noting that several extensions are already built into the Windows release, see the section about Windows extensions for details of the built-in extensions. You can uncomment the: 'extension=php_*.dll' lines in php.ini to load these extensions. Note that on a new installation it is advisable to first get PHP working and tested without any extensions before enabling them in php.ini. On PWS and IIS, you can set the browscap.ini to point to: 'c:\windows\system\inetsrv\browscap.ini' on Windows 9x/Me and 'c:\winnt\system32\inetsrv\browscap.ini' on NT/2000/XP Server. More information on the capabilities of browscap can be found here: http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.get-browser.php Note that the mibs directory supplied with the Windows distribution contains support files for SNMP. This directory should be moved to DRIVE:\usr\mibs (DRIVE being the drive where PHP is installed.) Installation of Windows extensions ================================== After installing PHP and a webserver on Windows, you will probably want to install some extensions for added functionality. The following table describes some of the extensions available. As described in the manual installation steps, you can choose which extensions you would like to load when PHP starts by uncommenting the: extension=php_*.dll' lines in php.ini. ATTENTION! ATTENTION! ATTENTION! Some extra DLLs are required for some PHP extensions. Please copy the bundled dlls from the 'dlls/' directory in distribution package to your windows/system (Win9.x) or winnt/system32 (WinNT, Win2000, XP) directory. If you already have these DLLs installed on your system, overwrite them only if something is not working correctly. Before overwriting them, it is a good idea to backup them or move them to another folder - just in case something goes wrong. Download the latest version of the Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) for your platform, especially Microsoft Windows 9x/NT4 users. MDAC is available at http://www.microsoft.com/data/ . Also note that some extensions need 3rd party libraries, e.g. php_oci8.dll needs the Oracle 8 client libraries to be installed on your system. These are not bundled with PHP distribution. ATTENTION! ATTENTION! ATTENTION! The DLLs for PHP extensions are prefixed with 'php_'. This prevents confusion between PHP extensions and their supporting libraries. Note: In PHP 4.0.5 MySQL, ODBC, FTP, Calendar, BCMath, COM, PCRE, Session, WDDX and XML support is built-in. You don't need to load any additional extensions in order to use these functions. Examples of PHP Extensions php_dbase.dll dBase functions php_filepro.dll Read-only access to Filepro databases php_gd.dll GD library functions for GIF manipulation php_hyperwave.dll HyperWave functions php_imap.dll IMAP functions php_ldap.dll LDAP functions php_mssql.dll MSSQL client (requires MSSQL DB-Libraries) php_snmp.dll SNMP get and walk functions (NT only!) php_zlib.dll ZLib compression functions For more information see the section about Windows extensions at http://www.php.net/manual/en/install-windows.php#install.windows.extensions Web server configuration ======================== Installing PHP on Windows with Apache 1.3.x There are two ways to set up PHP to work with Apache 1.3.x on Windows. One is to use the CGI binary (php-cgi.exe), the other is to use the Apache module dll. In either case you need to stop the Apache server, and edit your httpd.conf or srm.conf to configure Apache to work with PHP. We'll refer to either of these files with httpd.conf in the text. Although there can be a few variations of configuring PHP under Apache, these are simple enough to be used by the newcomer. Please consult the Apache Docs for further configuration directives. Installing PHP for Apache as module ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Now that version 4.1 introduces a safer sapi module, we recommend that you configure PHP as a module in Apache. To accomplish this, you have to load the php4apache.dll in your Apache httpd.conf. !! NOTE !! Whereever you load php4apache.dll from, php4apache.dll also needs the php4ts.dll also included in the PHP4 distribution. php4apache.dll depends on php4ts.dll which is loaded as soon as Apache loads php4apache.dll. If php4ts.dll can't be found, you usually get an error like (also see the "Problems?" section at the end of the file): Cannot load c:/php/sapi/php4apache.dll into server So where does php4ts.dll has to be to be properly loaded ? php4ts.dll is searched in the following order: 1) in the directory where apache.exe is start from 2) in the directory where php4apache.dll is loaded from 3) in your %SYSTEMROOT%\System32, %SYSTEMROOT%\system and %SYSTEMROOT% directory. Note: %SYSTEMROOT%\System32 only applies to Windows NT/2000/XP) 4) in your whole %PATH% Note: What is %SYSTEMROOT% ? Depending on your Windows installation this may be for example c:\winnt or C:\windows Usually you would just copy it over to %SYSTEMROOT%\System32. But if you want to have multiple PHP installations (for whatever reason) this is a bad idea. For this circumstance the safest thing is to let php4ts.dll reside in the same directory where php4apache.dll is loaded from (see point 2 above). After you've set up the file layout properly, you're ready to finally configure Apache to load the PHP4 module. Just add the following lines to your httpd.conf: LoadModule php4_module c:/php/sapi/php4apache.dll AddModule mod_php4.c AddType application/x-httpd-php .php Note: Especially newer versions of Apache do not need the AddModule directive anymore, your milage may vary. Where do I have to put the php.ini ? The php.ini files is only searched in two places: 1) in your Apache installation directory (e.g. c:\apache\apache) 2) in your %SYSTEMROOT% directory. Installing PHP for Apache as CGI binary ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you wish to install PHP as a CGI binary, read this first: http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-1996-11.html and then if you are really sure, insert these lines to your conf file: ScriptAlias /php/ "c:/php/" AddType application/x-httpd-php .php Action application/x-httpd-php "/php/php-cgi.exe" Note, we consider installing PHP like this suicidal. As a further precaution, we recommend you change the "/php/" ScriptAlias to something more random, to prevent the binary being called directly, which is a security risk. Remember when you have finished to restart the server, for example, NET STOP APACHE followed by NET START APACHE To use the source code highlighting feature, add the following line to your apache httpd.conf file: AddType application/x-httpd-php-source .phps Note, this will only work when you install php as a sapi module. If you wish to use this feature with the cgi binary, create a new file, and use the show_source("path/to/original_file.php"); function. Forward or backslash in pathnames ? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ On Win-Apache, path names can contain either forward- or backslashes. Example: LoadModule php4_module C:\php\sapi\php4apache.dll works as good as LoadModule php4_module C:/php/sapi/php4apache.dll You even can mix the slash-style: LoadModule php4_module C:\php/sapi\php4apache.dll ---------------------------------------------------------- Installing PHP on Windows with IIS/PWS This section contains notes and hints specific to IIS (Microsoft Internet Information Server). Installing PHP for PWS/IIS 3 and PWS/IIS 4 or newer versions. Windows and PWS/IIS 3 - including PWS on Win 9x/ME The recommended method for configuring these servers is to use the REG file incuded with the distribution (pws-php4cgi.reg). You may want to edit this file and make sure the extensions and PHP install directories match your configuration - once you have done this, just double click on the file and it will update your registry. Alternatively, you can follow the steps below to do it manually. WARNING: These steps involve working directly with the Windows registry. One error here can leave your system in an unstable state. We highly recommend that you back up your registry first. The PHP Development team will not be held responsible if you damage your registry. Run Regedit. Navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/System/CurrentControlSet/Services/W3Svc/Parameters/ScriptMap On the edit menu select: New->String Value. Type in the extension you wish to use for your php scripts. ex: .php Double click on the new string value and enter the path to php-cgi.exe in the value data field. ex: c:\php\php-cgi.exe Repeat these steps for each extension you wish to associate with PHP scripts. The following steps do not affect the web server installation and only apply if you want your php scripts to be executed when they are run from the command line (ex. run c:\myscripts\test.php) or by double clicking on them in a directory viewer window. You may wish to skip this step as you might prefer the php files to load into a text editor when you double click on them. Now navigate to: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT On the edit menu select: New->Key Name the key to the extension you setup in the previous section. ex: .php Highlight the new key and in the right side pane, double click the "default value" and enter phpfile. Repeat the last step for each extension you set up in the previous section. Now create another New->Key under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT and name it phpfile Highlight the new key 'phpfile' and in the right side pane, double click the "default value" and enter PHP Script. Right click on the 'phpfile' key and select New->Key, name it Shell. Right click on the 'Shell' key and select New->Key, name it open. Right click on the 'open' key and select New->Key, name it command. Highlight the new key 'command' and in the right side pane, double click the "default value" and enter the path to php-cgi.exe ex: c:\php\php-cgi.exe -q %1 (don't forget the '%1'). Exit Regedit. If using PWS on Windows, reboot to reload the registry. PWS and IIS 3 users now have a fully operational system. IIS 3 users can use a nifty tool available at http://www.genusa.com/iis/iiscfg.html from Steven Genusa to configure their script maps. Windows NT/2000/XP and IIS 4 or newer and PWS 4 on NT Workstation or W2K non server editions To install PHP on an NT/2000/XP Server running IIS 4 or newer, follow these instructions. You have two options to set up PHP, using the CGI binary (php-cgi.exe) or with the ISAPI module. In either case, you need to start the Microsoft Management Console (may appear as 'Internet Services Manager', either in your Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack branch or the Control Panel=>Administrative Tools under Windows 2000). Then right click on your Web server node (this will most probably appear as 'Default Web Server'), and select 'Properties'. If you want to use the CGI binary, do the following: Under 'Home Directory', 'Virtual Directory', or 'Directory', click on the 'Configuration' button, and then enter the App Mappings tab. Click Add, and in the Executable box, type: c:\php\php-cgi.exe (assuming that you have unzipped PHP in c:\php\). In the Extension box, type the file name extension you want associated with PHP scripts. Leave 'Method exclusions' blank, and check the Script engine checkbox. You may also like to check the 'check that file exists' box - for a small performance penalty, IIS (or PWS) will check that the script file exists and sort out authentication before firing up php. This means that you will get sensible 404 style error messages instead of cgi errors complaing that php did not output any data. You must repeat from 'Click Add...' for each extension you want associated with PHP scripts. (.php is recommended. although .phtml and .php3 may be required for legacy applications.) Set up the appropriate security. (This is done in Internet Service Manager), and if your NT Server uses NTFS file system, add execute rights for I_USR_ to the directory that contains php-cgi.exe !NOTE!: Since 4.1.2, the php.ini setting cgi.force_redirect defaults to '1' which effectively prevents the cgi from working within IIS. You need to set up at least a minimal php.ini file with the following directive: cgi.force_redirect = 0 If it doesn't work immidiately, make sure you have the php.ini file in the right place (%SYSTEMROOT%\php.ini). To use the ISAPI module, do the following: If you don't want to perform HTTP Authentication using PHP, you can (and should) skip this step. Under ISAPI Filters, add a new ISAPI filter. Use PHP as the filter name, and supply a path to the php4isapi.dll. Under 'Home Directory', click on the 'Configuration' button. Add a new entry to the Application Mappings. Use the path to the php4isapi.dll as the Executable, supply .php as the extension, leave Method exclusions blank, and check the Script engine checkbox. Stop IIS completely (net stop iisadmin) Start IIS again (net start w3svc) ---------------------------------------------------------- Installing PHP on Windows with OmniHTTPd Server This section contains notes and hints specific to OmniHTTPd 2.0b1 and up for Windows This has got to be the easiest config there is: Step 1: Install OmniHTTPd server. Step 2: Right click on the blue OmniHTTPd icon in the system tray and select 'Properties' Step 3: Click on 'Web Server Global Settings' Step 4: On the 'External' tab, enter: virtual = .php | actual = c:\path-to-php-dir\php-cgi.exe and use the Add button. Step 5: On the Mime tab, enter: virtual = wwwserver/stdcgi | actual = .php and use the Add button. Step 6: Click 'OK' Repeat steps 2 - 6 for each extension you want to associate with PHP. NOTE: Some OmniHTTPd packages come with built in PHP support. You can choose at setup time to do a custom setup, and uncheck the PHP component. We recommend you to use the latest PHP binaries. Some OmniHTTPd servers come with PHP 4 beta distributions, so you should choose not to set up the built in support, but install your own. If the server is already on your machine, use the Replace button in Step 4 and 5 to set the new, correct information. ---------------------------------------------------------- Installing PHP on Windows with Oreilly Website Pro This section contains notes and hints specific to Oreilly Website Pro 2.5 and up for Windows This list describes how to set up the PHP CGI binary or the ISAPI module to work with Oreilly Website Pro on Windows. Edit the Server Properties and select the tab "Mapping". From the List select "Associations" and enter the desired extension (".php") and the path to the CGI exe (ex. c:\php\php-cgi.exe) or the ISAPI dll file (ex. c:\php\sapi\php4isapi.dll). Select "Content Types" add the same extension ".php" and enter the content type. If you choose the CGI exe file, enter 'wwwserver/shellcgi', if you chose the ISAPI module, enter 'wwwserver/isapi' (both without quotes). ---------------------------------------------------------- Installing PHP on Windows with Xitami This section contains notes and hints specific to Xitami. This list describes how to set up the PHP CGI binary to work with Xitami on Windows. Make sure the webserver is running, and point your browser to xitamis admin console (usually http://127.0.0.1/admin), and click on Configuration. Navigate to the Filters, and put the extension which php should parse (i.e. .php) into the field File extensions (.xxx). In Filter command or script put the path and name of your php executable i.e. c:\php\php-cgi.exe. Press the 'Save' icon. ---------------------------------------------------------- Installing PHP on Windows with Netscape servers. To Install PHP as CGI (for Netscape Enterprise Server, iPlanet, perhaps Fastrack) Copy php4ts.dll to your systemroot (the directory where you installed windows) Make a file assocition from the command line (type the 2 following lines) assoc .php=PHPScript ftype PHPScript=c:\php\php-cgi.exe %1 %* In the Netscape Enterprise Administration Server create a dummy shellcgi directory and remove it just after (this step creates 5 important lines in obj.conf and allow the web server to handle shellcgi scripts) In the Netscape Enterprise Administration Server create a new mime type (Category:type,Content-Type:magnus-internal/shellcgi,File Suffix:php) Do it for each web server instance you want php to run More details http://benoit.noss.free.fr/php/install-php.html To Install PHP as NSAPI (for Netscape Enterprise Server, iPlanet, perhaps Fastrack) Copy php4ts.dll to your systemroot (the directory where you installed windows) Make a file assocition from the command line (type the 2 following lines) assoc .php=PHPScript ftype PHPScript=c:\php\php-cgi.exe %1 %* In the Netscape Enterprise Administration Server create a new mime type (Category:type,Content-Type:magnus-internal/x-httpd-php,File Suffix:php) Stop your web service and edit obj.conf At the end of the Init section, place these 2 lines (necessarily after mime type init!) Init fn="load-modules" funcs="php4_init,php4_close,php4_execute,php4_auth_trans" shlib="c:/php/sapi/php4nsapi.dll" Init fn="php4_init" errorString="Failed to initialise PHP!" In The < Object name="default" > section, place this line necessarily after all 'ObjectType' and before all 'AddLog' lines! Service fn="php4_execute" type="magnus-internal/x-httpd-php" At the end of the file, create a new object called x-httpd-php, by inserting this lines ObjectType fn="force-type" type="magnus-internal/x-httpd-php" Service fn=php4_execute Restart your web service and apply changes Do it for each web server instance you want php to run More details http://benoit.noss.free.fr/php/install-php4.html ---------------------------------------------------------- Problems? ========= Read the FAQ Some problems are more common than others. The most common ones are listed in the PHP FAQ, found at www.php.net/FAQ.php Common problems with Windows The following problems often occur with IIS/PWS, but some points may also apply to other servers. For test purposes it is best to use just a simple test script. One containing just the following line will suffice: You have installed PHP, but when try to access a php script file via your browser, you get a blank screen: Do a 'view source' in the web browser and you will probably find that you can see the source code of your php script. This means that the web server did not send the script to php for interpretation. Something is wrong with the server configuration - double check the server configuration against the php installation instructions. You have installed PHP, but when try to access a php script file via your browser, you get a server 500 error: Something went wrong when the server tried to run PHP. To get to see a sensible error message, from the command line, change to the directory containing php-cgi.exe and run "php-cgi.exe -i" (without quotes). If php has any problems running, then a suitable error message will be displayed which will give you a clue as to what needs to be done next. If you get a screen full of html codes (the output of the phpinfo() function) then php is working ok, and your problem may be related to your server configuration which you should double check. You have installed PHP, but when try to access a php script file via your browser, you get the error: cgi error: The specified CGI application misbehaved by not returning a complete set of HTTP headers. The headers it did return are: This error message means that php failed to output anything at all. From the command line hange to the directory containing php-cgi.exe. Run php-cgi.exe -i If php has any problems running, then a suitable error message will be displayed which will give you a clue as to what needs to be done next. If you get a screen full of html codes (the output of the phpinfo() function) then php is working ok. Once php is working at the command line, try accessing the php script via the browser again. If it still fails then it could be one of the following: file permissions on your php script, php-cgi.exe, php4ts.dll, php.ini or any php extensions you are trying to load are such that the anonymous internet user ISUR_ cannot access them. The script file does not exist (or possibly isn't where you think it is relative to your web root directory). Note that for IIS you can trap this error by ticking the 'check file exists' box when setting up the script mappings in the Internet Services Manager. If a script file does not exist then the server will return a 404 error instead. There is also the additional benefit that IIS will do any authentication required for you based on the NTLanMan permissions on your script file. You have inherent problems loading the right DLL? Sometimes, loading the right DLL can be a pain on Windows. Advanced Windows users may use a tool called strace (named after the famous Unix application) to trace file access on the system (however, it only works on NT-alike Windows, read: NT/2000/XP). It can be found at http://razor.bindview.com/tools/desc/strace_readme.html . Read the instruction there carefully! Example scenery: Apache/PHP4 as module. Though I've properly configured php4apache.dll in httpd.conf, I always get: Syntax error on line 1025 of c:/apache/apache/conf/httpd.conf: Cannot load c:/php/php-4.2.1-win32/sapi/php4apache.dll into server But c:/php/php-4.2.1-win32/sapi/php4apache.dll definitely exists: dir c:\php\php-4.2.1-win32\sapi\php4apache.dll Directory of c:\php\php-4.2.1-win32\sapi 13.05.2002 00:01 24.576 php4apache.dll 'strace'ing the apache.exe binary revealed the following: c: cd \apache\apache strace apache >strace.txt Then looking into strace.txt: [...] 729 3348 3248 NtOpenSection (0xe, {24, 24, 0x40, 0, 0, "php4ts.dll"}, ... ) == STATUS_OBJECT_NAME_NOT_FOUND 731 3348 3248 NtQueryAttributesFile ({24, 0, 0x40, 0, 0, "\??\c:\php\php-4.2.1-win32\sapi\php4ts.dll"}, 1234824, ... ) == STATUS_OBJECT_NAME_NOT_FOUND 733 3348 3248 NtQueryAttributesFile ({24, 108, 0x40, 0, 0, "php4ts.dll"}, 1234824, ... ) == STATUS_OBJECT_NAME_NOT_FOUND 735 3348 3248 NtQueryAttributesFile ({24, 0, 0x40, 0, 0, "\??\C:\WINNT\System32\php4ts.dll"}, 1234824, ... ) == STATUS_OBJECT_NAME_NOT_FOUND [...] This went on quiet some time for all directories in the %PATH% environment variable. The solution finally was to copy php4ts.dll in any of the directories searched by the System (I prefered to use c:\php\php-4.2.1-win32\sapi). Note: This does not only apply to php4ts.dll but in fact to every DLL which gets loaded through PHP too. So, if you've problems running your PHP CLI application because it can't load a certain library but you're sure it's there, try this tool. I'm using IIS/CGI and everytime I try to access a php file I get "Security Alert! The PHP CGI cannot be accessed directly." Since 4.1.2, the php.ini setting cgi.force_redirect defaults to '1' which effectively prevents the cgi from working within IIS. You need to set up at least a minimal php.ini file with the following directive: cgi.force_redirect = 0 If it doesn't work immidiately, make sure you have the php.ini file in the right place (%SYSTEMROOT%\php.ini). Other problems If you are still stuck, someone on the PHP installation mailing list may be able to help you. You should check out the archive first, in case someone already answered someone else who had the same problem as you. The archives are available from the support page on www.php.net To subscribe to the PHP installation mailing list, send an empty mail to: php-install-subscribe@lists.php.net The mailing list address is php-install@lists.php.net If you want to get help on the mailing list, please try to be precise and give the necessary details about your environment (which operating system, what PHP version, what web server, if ou are running PHP as CGI or a server module, etc.), and referably enough code to make others able to reproduce and test our problem. Bug reports =========== If you think you have found a bug in PHP, please report it. The PHP developers probably don't know about it, and unless you report it, chances are it won't be fixed. 1) Read about Bugs-Dos-And-Donts http://bugs.php.net/bugs-dos-and-donts.php 2) If you think you've found a bug, read http://bugs.php.net/bugs-dos-and-donts.php 3) Feel welcome to file a report at http://bugs.php.net/