Category: Software Development

Configure PHP on Mac OS X Mountain Lion

I have recently picked up a project to be created using PHP. It has been great to get back into PHP as I have not used it in a while (since PHP 4.3). For some reason, web sharing was removed from OS X Mountain Lion; removing the one click activation of Apache. PHP is still there and can be configured easily from the terminal. This post explains how to activate PHP, Pear and Xdebug using the system installation.

For convenience, I recommend using a separate stack for development, such as MAMP. I shall post about that later.

Install Xcode

If you intend to develop on your Mac then I recommend installing Xcode from the App Store. Once you have Xcode installed, launch the program and go to preferences. Click on the Downloads tab install the Command Line Tools. This will make compilers available, such as gcc, for building extensions and packages.

Xcode Preferences
Additional downloads for Xcode.

Configure PHP

Use the default initialisation file and copy it to the same directory as ‘php.ini’. You will need to provide your administrative account password for sudo commands.

$ sudo cp /private/etc/php.ini.default /private/etc/php.ini

You should now be able to execute php with the -v switch to get the current version and determine that it is installed.

Configure Pear

Execute the Pear PHP archive using the following:

$ sudo php /usr/lib/php/install-pear-nozlib.phar

Point Pear and Pecl programs to the PHP initialisation file:

$ pear config-set php_ini /private/etc/php.ini

$ pecl config-set php_ini /private/etc/php.ini

Finally, get Pear to upgrade itself and all of its packages.

$ sudo pear upgrade

Install and Configure Xdebug

From the terminal prompt, get Pecl to install Xdebug.

$ sudo pecl install xdebug

Pecl will install Xdebug as an extension and create a new line in your php.ini file referencing the extension. This will not work correctly as Xdebug needs to be loaded as Zend extension. This can be corrected with a brief and simple change to php.ini.

$ sudo pico /etc/php.ini

Change the line at the top that starts with ‘extension’ to:

zend_extension="/usr/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20090626/xdebug.so"

Save php.ini and you should now have a working PHP with Xdebug using Mountain Lion.

Raptor Games Win @ Dare to be Digital 2012

Raptor Games has won both the audience award and the “Ones to Watch” BAFTA nomination at Dare to be Digital 2012.

I know two of the team members, Hugh Laird (Project Lead) and Andrew Coles (Lead Programmer / Maths), and I am absolutely chuffed to bits for them and their team members. It is a huge achievement to win two awards off the back of a busy final year of their respective degrees! I am so proud of them and their accomplishments, they will cut fine figures in the world of computing!

You can follow them on Twitter @Dare2012_RG. They also have a web site. Staffordshire University has also posted a news article.

Keep in touch!

Importing an Xcode Project into Subversion

Subversion is great. Really, I should say that using code management is a great idea; I just happen to use Subversion. I have been involved with iOS and Cocoa development over the last couple of years and find Subversion to be valuable when working solo or as part of a team.

This post will explain how to get your Xcode 4 project into Subversion. There is a lot to Subversion and I do not intend to cover it all here. I merely intend to get you going.

At time of writing, I am using Xcode 4.3.4 on Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. You will need a subversion system; this may be accessed via HTTP or on the local file system. The screen shots shown here display settings used to connect to a Subversion system at Staffordshire University over HTTP. If you are a Staffordshire University student, ask your tutor regarding availability for your module or project.

You will need the following:

  • Xcode 4.3.4 (it will likely work with later versions)
  • Subversion repository details (ask your tutor or technical support for details)
  • An Xcode project to import into Subversion.

Continue reading “Importing an Xcode Project into Subversion”