by
Pierre-Alain Joye (paj@pearfr.org),
Mika Tuupola (tuupola@appelsiini.net)
The Year of the PEAR
PEAR and Windows, a reality
After months of expectation, the PEAR setup&management tools are now available and fully functional on Windows
platforms. The installation script go-pear has been completely reviewed and heavily tested using the different
Windows versions available.
In order to get all fixes/news, we strongly recommend the use of the bunlded PEAR available in the
PHP4 Stable snapshots (see the following paragraph).
I (your humble servant, pierre ;) ) would like to particulary thank the following persons which made this little "miracle"
possible, by providing new features, bugfixes or usefull tests and complete bug reports:
- Christian Dickmann, author of PEAR_Frontend_Web and go-pear Web.
- Urs Gehrig, intensive Win32 tests, and bug fixes.
- Stig S. Bakken, last fixes/addons for unices, commits/MFH, as well as his precious advice.
- Edin Kadribasic, integration of the PEAR snaps scripts in the PHP snapshots system,
tests and supports
PEAR, PHP 4.3.2 and snapshots
In order to allow Windows users to get the same tools as the Unix users, PEAR will be bundled back to PHP distribution,
and this as early as the release of PHP 4.3.2. The go-pear script and every required package for the setup will be available
in the PEAR folder of the distro; go-pear.bat launches the setup.
The following packages are now bundled with PHP:
- PEAR
- phpUnit
- XML_Parser
- XML_RPC
- Archive_Tar
- Console_Getop
- DB-1.4b1
- Mail
- Net_SMTP
- Net_Socket
- Net_UserAgent_Detect
- PEAR_Frontend_Web
- HTML_Template_IT
- Pager
In the meantime, the PHP 4 Stable snapshots already contain PEAR.
Go-pear, setup Web Interface
Being still in alpha status, the PEAR installation from a web browser and the Web Frontend are bundled with PHP, too.
A large number of users do not have any console access to their boxes or have absolutely no clue about the console
interface, providing this kind of GUI will hopefuly be useful, as they can now install PEAR within their favourite
browser.
Bugs and feature requests are welcome using the common bugs.php.net or
the PEAR Mailing lists.
go-pear Web usage:
-
Download the go-pear script by using the "Save target as ..." function
of your browser at go-pear.org.
- Place the go-pear file somewhere under the document root of your webserver.
The easiest way is to create a new directory for pear and to put the file in there.
- Access go-pear through your webserver and follow the instructions. Please
make sure that PHP has write access to the dir you want to install PEAR into.
- After running go-pear you get a link to the Web Frontend of the PEAR installer.
I suggest bookmarking this link.
- Protect the Web Frontend directory and the go-pear script with a password.
Use .htaccess on Apache webservers for example.
The Year of the PEAR
We are proud to see our project on the current PHP Magazine
cover page.
This promising title is a real reward for the PEAR members, who have
worked hard on PEAR's evolution, promotion, adding high quality packages, and for the numerous users
that have sent us bug reports, feature requests or comments.
We thank the editor of PHP Magazine, Software&Support Verlag GmbH and
particulary its editors in Chief:
- Derick Rethans
- Jan Lehnardt
In this PEAR special edition, you find high quality articles covering a large amount of packages and principles, from
active and respected members of the PHP and PEAR communities:
-
Introduction to PEAR, Stig S. Bakken
Stig introduces the basic notions of PEAR, installer usage, and the use of some core PEAR modules.
-
PEAR based deployment, Alexander Merz
Alexander will help you to provide an infrastructure for deploying your applications using the PEAR Package Manager
API and the pearweb server tools (used for pear.php.net).
-
PEAR-Error in detail, Alexander Merz
Mastering PEAR-Error handlers and an in-depth explanation of PEAR's error handling facilities, a must have!
(Online article)
-
PEAR::Tree, Sterling Hugues
PEAR::Tree usage
-
PHPDocumentor, fantastic Documentation, by Greg Beaver
Greg, PHPDocumentor's author, explains the use of his wonderful application, how it can be used to transform
good documentation into fantastic documentation. Get all his secrets
with this article.
-
XML Transformer, Kristian Köhntopp
XML Transformer, as a pure PHP alternative to XSLT, is well described in this article, learn the basics
and see how to go further with this powerful package.
-
Python in PHP, Jon Parise
Jon Parise, author of the Python extension (PECL), explains you how to get the complete access to a Python environment
from PHP, ending his article with a little roadmap and some useful advice.
-
Using the Streams API in PHP 4.3 (Part I), Wez Furlong
Even if it is not direclty related to PEAR, it should interest the PECL authors that need Streams functions within their
respective extensions. Wez introduced a nice Stream in PHP 4.3, making our life easier with all streams related codes.
This issue is out since a week or so and is available in every good news shop.
You can subscibe to the magazine here:
.
In the press
::phpPatterns a publié une petite introduction
à PEAR::Soap, PEAR::SOAP Client Fast Start (Translation needed... I don't speak any french :P)