Mac OS X Leopard and PHP

Question

Posted in both the Dreamweaver and Dreamweaver Application
Development
forums.
Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) uses Apache 2.2.6. This is NOT
compatible with
the Mac PHP package recommended in all my books. Marc
Liyanage
(www.entropy.ch/home) is aware of the problem, but there is
no ETA for
an update.
If you have upgraded to Leopard and want to develop PHP pages
on your
Mac, you might want to try MAMP (www.mamp.info/en/mamp.html)
instead. I
haven't tested it myself yet, but it has a very good
reputation.
David Powers, Adobe Community Expert
Author, "The Essential Guide to Dreamweaver CS3" (friends of
ED)
Author, "PHP Solutions" (friends of ED)
http://foundationphp.com/

Answer 1

For non nerds or starters like me:
To enable PHP and Apache in Leopard:
Apache is simple, go to the sharing panel in system
preferences, and enable “Web Sharing”.
PHP requires he use of Terminal (or a BBEdit/Textwrangler if
you prefer).
First check you have enabled Root in Leopard.
If not here’s how:
1. Open the Directory Utility: In the Finder, navigate to
the Utilities folder (tip: click on the desktop, hit Cmd+Shift+U).
2. Click on the padlock to allow edits.
3. Go Edit > Enable Root Password
4. Enter and re-enter your password.
Now, you are set to access protected areas of the system via
the terminal. Probably a good idea to back up any file before you
modify it, just in case.
Back to terminal...
when you first start terminal it will show your Admin name
followed by a colon,
eg johnsmith:
type “su” the press enter
terminal will the ask for a password,
type in your “password” and press enter.
Note your password doesn’t appear on the screen.
You have two files to alter briefly.
First file:
Type: sudo pico /private/etc/apache2/httpd.conf
and press enter (note the space after sudo and pico).
This opens the file: htpd.conf a hidden file.
Now if you haven’t used this before (I hadn’t and
learned on the job), the navigation symbols at the screen bottom
with an inverted “v” and a letter , mean to press
control and the letter, for example “control X” to
exit.
You need to alter 3 lines of code:
1....Use the arrow keys to move down the page...first find a
group of coded lines that start with:
LoadModule (there are many lines)..
near the end you’ll find a line:
#LoadModule php5_module modules/libphp5.so
you need to remove the “#” to uncomment and make
it active. Position the cursor to the right of the hash and press
delete.
2....Next find a line starting with
“DirectoryIndex” it probably looks like:
DirectoryIndex index.html
Alter it to this:
DirectoryIndex index.html index.html.var index.php
3....Next find a group of lines that have “ AddType
application/x ........”
I seem to remember there were 2 lines like that,
add a line straight after like this:
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php ( note the space between
php and .php)
To save your file press “control X” to exit, and
“Y” (yes) to save. It then asks if you want to save as
a name/different, I just pressed enter to accept the default name.
I went back to check all had been saved by re-opening the
file.
Second File:
Type: sudo pico /private/etc/php.ini.default
You only need to alter one line n this file.
Look for a series of lines beginning with a semi-colon like
this:
;error_reporting = etc etc etc
Find a line below without a semi colon like this:
error_reporting = E_ALL & -E_NOTICE
then edit out all after “E_ALL” so it looks like
this:
error_reporting = E_ALL
Save you work as before.
You can now test PHP works quickly by starting TextEdit and
type in:
<?php
phpinfo();
?>
Save the file as “test.php” to your root web
directory
on my Mac is” Macintosh HD/Library/WebServer/Documents
(Actually I also saved it to just the WebServer folder).
Start up your browser and enter a URL:
http://localhost/test.php
If all has been done as above you’ll get a ful listing
of php stuff you probably don’t need to know!