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Why do I have to compile to use IMAP or other modules???

Posted: Wed Dec 10, 2003 8:25 am
by costas
I am coming from the Windows world where basically you have a DLL and you just load it at runtime for example in VB.

Why is it with PHP I have to compile PHP with the IMAP or MYSQL (for example) to get it to work. Maybe I am misunuderstanding this whole concept.

For example I downloaded Zend studio and now I want to use IMAP functions. Zend has its own version (4.3) of PHP and Red Hat has an older version (4.2).

I don't even know where the source files are. Do I have to download and compile and ./configure ?

Why can't there be a simple "Load the Module" function so people don't have to do this compile stuff for every module they may or may not need at runtime?

Thanks

Costas