Installing the Pear Classes

If you've been doing FileMaker custom web development using PHP, you've probably heard of PEAR. PEAR (short for "PHP Extension and Application Repository") is a collection of PHP code that performs many common functions. PEAR packages either provide enhanced versions of functionality that is built into PHP itself, or provide functionality that PHP lacks. For a list of packages that PEAR provides, go to: http://pear.php.net/packages.php

This post describes how you can install PEAR packages on Windows-based servers where FileMaker's version of PHP was installed as part of the FileMaker Server (or Server Advanced) installation.

To get started, open up a Command Prompt. (From the Start menu, select All Programs, Accessories, and Command Prompt.)

At the DOS prompt, enter: CD C:\Program Files\FileMaker\FileMaker Server\Web Publishing\publishing-engine\php

Next, enter: pear

A list of available PEAR commands should be presented.

To install a PEAR package, type "pear install " and then the name of the package that you want to install. For example, to install the PEAR mail library, you would enter: pear install mail

As the package installs, you'll see progress information. For example:

Did not download dependencies: pear/Net_SMTP, use --alldeps or --onlyreqdeps to
download automatically
pear/Mail can optionally use package "pear/Net_SMTP" (version >= 1.1.0)
downloading Mail-1.1.14.tgz ...
Starting to download Mail-1.1.14.tgz (17,537 bytes)
......done: 17,537 bytes
install ok: channel://pear.php.net/Mail-1.1.14

Notice that in this example, the package that was installed is dependent upon another package. In this case, the package is dependent upon the PEAR Net_SMTP package. To install it, you would enter: pear install net_smtp

That's all!