Configuring PHP
 

I'm running Mac OS X. I know PHP is installed by default but I want to upgrade to the latest version before I use it. I found a guide to installing PHP online, and it includes instructions for installing GD, etc. It seems like you have to decide on and configure everything you want your PHP installation to include before you install it. My question is, what if you decide you want to add another component? Is it possible to do so without reinstalling, and if so, where can I find instructions for this? Thanks.

I don't know about Mac OS X but on a windows machine you can change your extensions by editing the PHP.ini file. The components are packed in dlls which are in the extensions folder.

If you use MacPorts to install PHP (and Apache and MySQL, while you're at it), it'll compile in most modules by default, and you can specify extra ones using the variants functionality.

If you want to do-it-yourself, you can compile extensions as system objects (.so) and enable and disable them as you like in php.ini.

Theres a package you can install that installs php for you and adds it to the apache config:

http://www.entropy.ch/software/macosx/php/

Hope this helps.