PHP 5.5 Builds

PHP 5.5

New PHP extension builds

New builds of php_sqlsrv and php_spidermonkey are available including PHP 5.5 supporting 32 and 64 bits (64-bit builds are in the x64 folder of the zip file).

Download all_php_builds.zip - new builds of various 3rd party extensions, updated 19 June 2014:

• Microsoft SQL Server Driver for PHP 5.3, 5.4 and 5.5 (php_sqlsrv and php_pdo_sqlsrv).  64 bit drivers are in the x64 folder of the zip file.  This is version 3.0.2.2 built 19 June 2014, a quick rebuild to fix a bug I missed a few days ago, reported by Marius Serban - many thanks Marius.
• php_spidermonkey for PHP 5.3, 5.4 and 5.5.  This extension needs updating to work with Mozilla's newest version of Spidermonkey.  PHP 5.5 64-bit build is included in the x64 folder of the zip file.

Notes

I have rebuilt all the extensions I use on Windows and put them all in one big zip file.  Some notes on sqlsrv are below.  I have not tested all versions, just rebuilt.  There is a 64-bit build of Spidermonkey in the x64 folder of the zip file as of 19 June 2014. Everything is built on either the VC9 (PHP 5.3, 5.4) or VC11 (PHP 5.5) compiler.

Sqlsrv changes

The sqlsrv driver has a fix to a bug found by Charles Durrant (http://sqlsrvphp.codeplex.com/workitem/22427) which I too recently experienced when running PHP-32 on a 64 bit server.  I noted Charles's post when he first reported the bug, but tried my best to avoid working on the source code until I had to... Charles saved me a huge amount of time, so thank you to him.  My fix is different, I have repaired all of Microsoft's dodgy auto pointers and completely rewritten the horrible function that caused the crash.  If anyone uses these new builds and spots memory leaks or bugs due to these changes, please let me know and I'll fix them within a day or two.

Other stuff

Netbeans - very cool

Some time ago I switched from Eclipse to Netbeans for PHP development because Eclipse was having trouble handling very large source files (such as TCPDF) and it was a little bit generic.  I have never looked back, Netbeans just gets better and better and is a joy to work with - http://www.netbeans.org.  It is free and a perfect platform for PHP development, with support for PHP, HTML, CSS and Javascript.

Stop using Wincache

Wincache does not speed up PHP on IIS 7+, and causes it to seize up at random times.  If you need an op-code cache use the distributed one with PHP 5.5, or just make do.  IIS 7.5 and later are so quick and reliable, wincache is not going to make a significant difference and might actually slow things down.  Which leads to...

IIS 7.5 and later - very cool

I've been extremely impressed by IIS over the past few years.  Ever since 7.5 it's been a real monster of a web server, incredibly fast and easy to look after and set up.  Well done Microsoft - and this is a very fine web site too: http://www.iis.net/.  It has plenty of support for running PHP on IIS.