Installing and Updating PEAR

PEAR: PHP Extension and Application Repository, is one of the most effective means for finding and resuing great PHP code.

It has been included with the distribution since version 4.3.0. If you are running PHP 4.2.X or earlier versions, this section will teach you how to install PEAR package manager. Because many readers run their websites on shared hosting providers, this section also explains how to take advantage of PEAR without running a package manager.

1. Install PEAR

1.1. Install PEAR on Linux

Installing PEAR on Linux is really simple, because, since PHP 4.3.0, it is installed by default unless you pass

- when configuring PHP. -without-pear option to explicitly disable its installation. If you do disable it, just make sure not to include the

--without-pear option when you reconfigure PHP; another way is to explicitly add the --with-pear option.

There is another installation method: download a script from pear.php.net, and then use PHP binary to execute the script. Open a terminal and enter the following command: %> lynx -source http://pear.php.net/go-pear | php

Note, you need to have the Lynx Web browser installed. However, you can also use a standard browser such as Firefox to browse the URL, save it, and then execute it using php binary.

Once the installation process starts, you will receive some prompts to confirm some configurations, such as where to store PEAR packages and documents. You'll most likely just accept the default answer. After a few questions, you will be asked whether to install 3 optional packages, and you can only install all or one of them; therefore, if you want to start using these packages immediately, just agree.

1.2. Install PEAR on Windows

PEAR is not installed by default on Windows distribution. To install, you need to run the

go-pear.bat file in the root directory of the PHP distribution. This file will install the PEAR command, necessary support files, and the 6 PEAR packages mentioned earlier. Go into that directory and execute %>go-pear.bat or php go-pear.phar

2. PEAR and hosting company

Due to the widespread use of PHP in hosting environments, your provider It's quite possible to allow access to at least one system-wide PEAR installation. However, if you have command line access to the hosting server, you can easily configure a local version with the following command: %>pear config-create /home/USERNAME/pear .pearrc

You will need to replace USERNAME above into the username (and possibly the path) in your server environment. Then, open your .bashrc file and add the path ~pear/bin to your PATH so you can invoke the locally installed pear command. Finally, execute the following command to create a directory structure for storing your PEAR package:

%>pear install -o PEAR

From now on, you can use the pear command to install the package , and these packages will be stored under your local account. Just remember that to use these packages, you need to modify PHP's include_path directive so that it points to your /home/USERNAME/pear/lib directory.

3. Update PEAR

Although it has been around for more than 10 years, the PEAR package manager is constantly improving. Therefore, you will want to check for updates occasionally.

%>pear upgrade

The above has introduced Installing and Updating PEAR, including aspects of it. I hope it will be helpful to friends who are interested in PHP tutorials.