MacOS X Server Update 10.5.4 leaves PHP Unbroken

I have found MacOS X Server Update 10.5.4 to leave my PHP installation unbroken.

What does this mean?

As a public service, I decided to start announcing if an update to MacOS X Server breaks my PHP installation. Sometimes, Apple updates PHP as part of a MOSXS update without making it clear that they’re going to do so, and I’ve gotten cautious enough with applying updates that I now backup both my PHP binary as well as my PHP Apache module before applying an update. When I find that things remain unbroken, I’ll let you know. And if I find that it breaks something, I’ll let you know what broke.

Some hints

If you don’t want your PHP installation broken, backup the two important binaries, like this:

$ sudo cp /usr/libexec/apache2/libphp5.so /usr/libexec/apache2/libphp5.so.custom
$ sudo cp /usr/bin/php /usr/bin/php.custom

If an update breaks your PHP installation, you can simply revert to the .custom versions until you figure out how to make PHP work again with the latest PHP version.

For reference, here’s my PHP configuration:

PHP Version => 5.2.5

System => Darwin *redacted* 9.4.0 Darwin Kernel Version 9.4.0: Mon Jun  9 19:36:17 PDT 2008; root:xnu-1228.5.20~1/RELEASE_PPC Power Macintosh
Build Date => May 28 2008 22:11:02
Configure Command =>  './configure'  '--prefix=/usr' '--mandir=/usr/share/man' '--infodir=/usr/share/info' '--disable-dependency-tracking' '--with-apxs2=/usr/sbin/apxs' '--with-ldap=/usr' '--with-kerberos=/usr' '--enable-cli' '--with-zlib-dir=/usr' '--enable-trans-sid' '--with-xml' '--enable-exif' '--enable-ftp' '--enable-mbstring' '--enable-mbregex' '--enable-dbx' '--enable-sockets' '--with-iodbc=/usr' '--with-curl=/usr' '--with-config-file-path=/etc' '--sysconfdir=/private/etc' '--with-mysql-sock=/var/mysql' '--with-mysqli=/usr/bin/mysql_config' '--with-mysql=/usr' '--with-openssl' '--with-xmlrpc' '--with-xsl=/usr' '--without-pear' '--with-freetype-dir=/usr/local/lib' '--with-jpeg-dir=/usr/local/lib' '--with-png-dir=/usr/X11R6' '--with-xpm-dir=/usr/X11R6' '--with-gd' '--with-ttf' '--with-iconv=/usr/local/lib' '--enable-gd-imgstrttf' '--enable-gd-native-ttf'
Server API => Command Line Interface
Virtual Directory Support => disabled
Configuration File (php.ini) Path => /etc
Loaded Configuration File => /private/etc/php.ini
PHP API => 20041225
PHP Extension => 20060613
Zend Extension => 220060519
Debug Build => no
Thread Safety => disabled
Zend Memory Manager => enabled
IPv6 Support => enabled
Registered PHP Streams => php, file, data, http, ftp, compress.zlib, https, ftps  
Registered Stream Socket Transports => tcp, udp, unix, udg, ssl, sslv3, sslv2, tls
Registered Stream Filters => string.rot13, string.toupper, string.tolower, string.strip_tags, convert.*, consumed, convert.iconv.*, zlib.*