php application deployment

[chupinette]

Hello everyone!
I am developing a php web application and I was searching on how to deploy it. I heard about nusphere..But it is a trial version..Can anyone give me some suggestions or tutorials on how to deploy a php application?

Thanks,
Chupi
:)

[Graphix]

Welcome to PHP :)

To answer your question:

There are multiple php processors, but i think XAMPP is the best (free!) option. I haven't had any problems with it so far, you can download it at:

http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html

If you have created a php file, you need to copy it to the "htdocs" folder, found by default at C:/xampp/htdocs/ . I suggest you make a folder named "myphp" or something.

You can view the php file at: http://localhost/myphp/

Please keep in mind you will need to have the Apache service running (you can activate it at the XAMPP Control Panel)

~G

[chupinette]

Thanks for your reply..hmm im actually using xampp..maybe i have not asked the right question. my friends are developing other type of applications using visual studio and they have to deploy their software by creating an exe file. is it the same for php web applications?do i need to do something specific to deploy my app?

[chrishea]

Since PHP is interpreted at run time, you don't need to go through any sort of compilation process before putting it on a server or zipping it to make it available for download. Generally, what is working under Xampp should also work on a linux server. Some applications have install programs that check the operating environment to check that the right PHP parms are set, the DB has been defined (if it needs one) and so on. I'm not aware of any general purpose install utility for PHP, I think that these are all custom.

If you are developing proprietary rather than open-source code and you wish to sell it, then you have to consider how to protect it and license it. There are a couple of pretty good systems to do this (from Ioncube and Zend), a few others that might be OK and some that can be fairly easily broken (obfusticators). From what I have read, they can all be cracked (same as for Windows apps) and it is just a question of the degree of difficulty. Ioncube has an online pay-as-you-go online facility. The Ioncube and Zend systems (and a few others) convert your programs to 'byte-code' (similar idea to compiling but it doesn't produce machine code). Features to handle licensing (registration codes etc) are also available.

[chupinette]

Thanks for the reply chris,
well im developing my final year project and i will have to deploy the application in the lab at university..

[edwinhermann]

Just to add to Chris's reply, there's also PHPshadow (http://www.phpshadow.com) if you're deploying on Linux/BSD/Mac OS servers.

[chupinette]

Thanks everyone!

Chupi
:)