php/ext/oci8

Installing OCI8
---------------

1. Common requirements.
2. Installing as shared extension.
3. Installing as statically compiled extension.
4. Installing from PECL.


1. Common requirements
----------------------
In case if you use Oracle Instant Client, you don't have to set ORACLE_HOME and 
most of the other environment variables to build PHP with OCI8 support. 
The only variables you may have to set are:
LD_LIBRARY_PATH - it must include Instant Client libraries dir
NLS_LANG - in case if you want to change the default encoding used during 
interaction with Oracle servers

If you use common Oracle Client installation that comes along with the Oracle 
server installation, you MUST set at least ORACLE_HOME environment variable 
and make it visible for your web-server BEFORE it starts. Most appropriate 
places to add ORACLE_HOME definition are:
- /etc/profile
- /etc/profile.local
- /etc/profile.d
and others.

2. Installing as shared extension
---------------------------------
To install OCI8 as shared extension (i.e. the one you should put into 
your php.ini) use the following configure lines to configure PHP:
a) if you use common Oracle Client installation:
./configure --with-oci8=shared,$ORACLE_HOME

b) with Oracle Instant Client:
./configure --with-oci8=shared,instantclient,/path/to/instant/client/lib
If you use rpm-based installation of Oracle Instant Client, your configure 
line will look like this:
./configure --with-oci8=shared,instantclient,/usr/lib/oracle/<OIC version>/client/lib

Follow the usual building procedure after that and you'll get OCI8 shared 
extension (i.e. oci8.so). Add it into the php.ini file like this:
extension=oci8.so
and don't forget to specify the right extension_dir for PHP to be able 
to find shared extensions correctly.

3. Installing as statically compiled extension
----------------------------------------------
To install OCI8 as statically compiled module use the following configure lines:
a) with common Oracle Client installation
./configure --with-oci8=$ORACLE_HOME

b) with Oracle Instant Client
./configure --with-oci8=instantclient,/path/to/instant/client/lib

After successful compile, you don't have to add oci8.so to the php.ini, the module will 
be usable without any additional actions.

4. Installing from PECL
-----------------------
TBD