Firebird PHP OSX

The stated goal is to compile PHP on OSX with the support for Interbase / Firebird. In my situation Firebird itself did not even need to be run on the same machine, I would connect to the other database server, I only need to run PHP.

Was it done before?

• There is at least one person that has done it and even partially documented it. (could not get in touch)
• There is also someone in Japan that managed to do it, at least it seems so. Here is a google translation (could not get in touch)

What really the problem here?

Well, it looks like basic problem is that at the compiling time, and you do have to compile since avaliable PHP binaries do not support Interbase, PHP needs to fetch Interbase libraries. To that end libraries have to be there and PHP has to be able to find them, in order to happily compile.

Sub challange

If you are to pursue our established goal, chances are you will be trying to compile Firebird on OSX in order to get workable libraries. I suggest to look at David Pugh initiative to get Firebird compilable on OSX. That way you will probably get your needed libraries

Where to go?

There is a mailing list dedicated to PHP with Firebird, but I had problems posting to it (here). Mind that there is a lot of material but the group is not OSX / Darwin specific. There is at least one thread of a person trying to get PHP with Firebird support running on OSX. He apparently gave up trying long ago, as confirmed by mail.

Are there other means?

Maybe you could get interbase.so file from someone who has it already.

Are there workarounds?

• Well, there is also ADOdb - Database Abstraction Library for PHP (and Python) adjusted for use with Darwin Ports available here. I did get it running, but people supplying PHP files insisted on compiled in Firebird support..