Web Design Forums

If you're looking for help installing or configuring a PHP script, this is the forum to ask your questions. Please try searching before if you think the topic may have already been covered. Otherwise, post a thread in the PHP Forum (http://forums.webdes1gn.net/php/) and other users will provide their input.

Installing a php script should be more friendly than installing a cgi-script, generally speaking, and it is due in part to the help the php parsing engine gives us. You will likely take the following steps:

1. edit the configuration variables inside the php script (look for setup.php or config.php or something like this in the readme.txt).
2. You will need to set absolute paths most likely to directories if the script will be doing any file writing. The absolute path is the full path from the server to the directory you are writing to. Something like this (shown in red/green):

/home/usr/htdocs/datadir

The RELATIVE path is the path from public or html portion of the directory (shown in green above):

/datadir

3. If the script utilyzes a mySQL database then you will need to create the tables associated with the mySQL database. If the script doesn't come with a helper table creation script then you can use telnet. There is instructions on how to use telnet to create a mySQL table in one of my prior diary entries: click here for 7-07-00 diary

4. You will likely need to set UNIX permissions for any file/directory that the script must access. In doing so you should be given the permission settings in the readme file. If there is no readme then you might try the following:

chmod 666 filename.txt (any file that needs to be read/written by the php script)
chmod 777 DIRECTORY (any directory that needs to be read/written by the php script)

5. If the script requires function froms php 4.0 and your version of php is less than 4+ then you will need to have your host compile php 4.0 on the server or rewrite the portions of the code calling those functions. You can check what version of PHP you are using by creating a simple test.php file with the following code:

<? phpinfo(); ?>

This will tell you a lot more than just what version of PHP you are running. Try it :)
6. upload all scripts in ASCII mode. Binary can really mess up script source files, so look into your FTP editor settings and ensure you are using ASCII mode for any scripts you try to upload.
7. Does the script require the gd library or other modules which are not included with the core php source? If the script does then these libraries must be compiled by your host (or you) prior to executing the script. Check the script readme documentation for more help on this.

These all steps are really nice for to installing the PHP script. The main step to install the PHP is edit the configuration variables inside the php script (look for setup.php or config.php or something like this in the readme.txt. It is important step to install.

The most important step is to modify the PHP installation to set up inside the php script setup.php search or config.php or something in this readme.txt. It is an important step for installation. Would Installing PHP Script be more friendly Than the installation of a cgi-script, in general, and is due in part to help the PHP parsing engine to give us.