In the vein of some of Lorna's articles, this is more a note for myself than anything else. Not everything is explained in detail as it assumes you know how to use a command line...These are the steps I take to get the Apple supplied PHP working with GD, PDO_MySQL and Xdebug working on OS X 10.5.

He show how to: run Apache in 32 bit mode, download and install MySQL, setup and configure Apache, changes values in the php.ini and install the other extensions (like XDebug and the GD library). He uses the latest PHP 5 distribution at the time - PHP 5.2.6 - but these instructions should work for any in the PHP 5.x series you might want to use.

With the release of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard last fall, Apple (finally) included a modern version of PHP (currently version 5.2.6 as of this writing). [...] However, the default install of PHP that Apple included didn't include all of the available PHP extensions. Most notable is the IMAP extension, which is used in SugarCRM for the Campaigns and Emails modules. However you can build this extension and have it loaded dynamically, without affecting the rest of the default PHP install.

He shows where to get the packages and libraries you'll need to get the support working. The method involves building a shared module and including it to be loaded in your php.ini. This way it doesn't disrupt anything the current build has and you don't have to recompile everything over again.

There is one thing I do need over everything else: remote debugging. Having used Zend Studio for 3 years now it hasn't been the best editor ( I'd rather prefer PHPEclipse/PDT ) but the remote debugging facility is superb [...] Eclipse it has all the tools you need to develop with but the debugging is slow, way too slow!

He's looking for anyone out there that might be able to help him speed up the debugging on his Leopard-installed version of Eclipse ("So slow actually that I had to install Zend Studio 5.5 for whenever I have to debug a file...")

There are a bunch of things wrong with Leopard, but over all I'm pretty happy with it. I did, however, have a bit of a hard time getting my development environment up and running (I did a clean install). I'll outline the steps that I took to get a functioning Apache, PHP, MySQL installed. Sure, you could use the leopard-bundled Apache and PHP, but if you're like me, you generally upgrade PHP (and use weird extensions) a lot more often than Apple will upgrade it.

He walks through the entire installation, complete with the commands that'll need to be made to both make the install and configure the Apache instance to work with PHP.

I've had some code hanging around on my laptop for the better part of a year (feels like two, but I don't think I've had my MBP that long), that implements a bridge between PHP and the Objective-C runtime.

Yesterday I debugged the last portion that I regarded as a total showstopper for anyone else that might want to use it, and added a script that pulls in your PHP installation and dependent libraries (such as Fink or Mac Ports libraries) and generates a "Bundle" and optionally a DMG containing the Bundle.

He had a fellow developer try it out on Leopard too (things broke, but most are fixed) who also created a simple ping example to show off this project in its (very early) alpha stages. He mentions in the post how to get to the code, but if you can't locate it, just wait a bit - he'll have it posted up soon enough.

Also check out Sean Coates' and Joseph Crawford's comments on the project too.

With massive! help from Marc Ammann I was able to build a PHP Binary that loads with the Leopard shipped Apache.

His method replaces the standard iconv file with a custom built one (based on this source) prior to compiling. Then, in his configure, he sets certain flags, specifically the "arch x86_64" one, to get it to recognize the new setup.

His post is a guide to setting up a development environment on your newly upgraded system. He's broken it up into quite a few steps:

• Enable Developer Tools
• Editing Configuration Files
• Enabling PHP
• Starting Apache
• Visiting our Web Site
• Showing the World
• Enabling a Personal Website
• Virtual Hosting
• Sharing with the World, Part II
• Installing MySQL
• Bring the mysql.sock to PHP
• Where is PEAR?
• PHP .ini configuration

Don't worry, each of the sections in the list don't have much more than one or two paragraphs under them and they're loaded with links to help you through some of the more detailed points.