How to build PHP from source

It is an interesting thing to build PHP source on a Windows Platform. It is extremely useful to build PHP source with various options specially if you wish to write a php extension. Here are some interesting tips on how you can build PHP source on a windows platform.

First you need to download the following dependencies.

1. You need to have visual studio or windows platform SDK install on you machine in order to have the required compiler and build tools.

2. You need to download the PHP build dependencies.

These include

1. Binary tools - Essential

2. Libxml2   - Optional

3. Iconv Optional

4. Zlib   - Optional

5. Apache or other web server that you intend to build modules.

6. PHP Source  - Essential

7. bindlib-cvs-vc8  - Essential

 

Most of these tools can be downloaded from here.

Once you have downloaded these tools, you are ready to build PHP from source.

First unzip all these tools to a directory. 

Next, open visual studio command prompt and add binary-tools\bin directory to the path.

Now, go to the PHP source extract directory and type,

buildconf.bat

Then run

cscript /nologo configure.js --help

You will see a large number of options as shown above.

Next open the config.nice.bat file located in the php source directory and add necessary configure options for your build

Here are my configuration options

cscript /nologo configure.js  "--with-extra-includes=E:\phpbuild\bindlib-cvs-vc8\include;E:\Apache22\include;E:\phpbuild\iconv-1.9.2.win32\include;E:\phpbuild\libxml2-2.6.30.win32\include;E:\phpbuild\zlib-1.2.3.win32\include"

"--with-extra-libs=E:\phpbuild\iconv-1.9.2.win32\lib;E:\phpbuild\libxml2-2.6.30.win32\lib;E:\phpbuild\zlib-1.2.3.win32\lib;E:\Apache22\lib;E:\phpbuild\bindlib-cvs-vc8\lib"

"--enable-debug"  "--enable-apache2-2handler" %*

 

Here I am using the option --with-extra-includes to specify the include paths of the dependency libraries.  Similarly --with-extra-libs is used to specify the library path.

I use the options --enable-debug to make it a debug build.

Now run config.nice.bat file.

Next you can try nmake on the command line  and it will build the PHP Source.