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What does actually mean by the frequently used term "PHP binary"? – Apache

I’m using Windows 10 Home Single Language 64-bit Operating System on my laptop.

I’ve installed the latest version of XAMPP on my laptop.

This has installed PHP 7.2.8 and Apache/2.4.34 (Win32) OpenSSL/1.1.0h PHP/7.2.8 on my laptop.

I come across following sentence from PHP Manual Page :

PHP can be used on all major operating systems, including Linux, many
Unix variants (including HP-UX, Solaris and OpenBSD), Microsoft
Windows, macOS, RISC OS, and probably others. PHP also has support for
most of the web servers today. This includes Apache, IIS, and many
others. And this includes any web server that can utilize the FastCGI
PHP binary, like lighttpd and nginx.

From the above text I didn’t get the exact meaning of the term “PHP binary”. This peculiar term is used very frequently at many places in the PHP Manual but nowhere the actual meaning of “PHP binary” has been given.

I googled it for the meaning and I come to know about the ‘predefined constant’ PHP_BINARY.

So, I tried to execute the below code in hope to clear my doubt over the actual meaning of the frequently used term “PHP binary” and checked the output in my web browser:

<?php
  echo PHP_BINARY;
?>

Surprisingly, I got the below output :

C:xamppapachebinhttpd.exe

I got surprised to see this output because in output I got complete address of the Apache file httpd.exe. I was expecting to get something about PHP but I got Apache file’s address. Why so?

So, what does ultimately mean is I still don’t understand what does actually mean by the frequently used term “PHP binary”?

I still don’t have any idea about what does actually mean by the very frequently used term “PHP binary”?

Someone, please clear my doubt about the frequently used term “PHP binary” in an easy to understand, simple and lucid language.

I’m waiting for your help.

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2

Answers


  1. 0

    PHP itself is running as a program on your computer (often referred to a binary).

    Supposed we were on Windows, the PHP binary would probably be php.exe. Essentially, PHP itself.

    Note that the PHP binary could be a server module… a DLL or similar.

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  2. 0

    The compiled version of any program is commonly referred to as it’s “binary”.

    PHP has multiple binaries for multiple purposes.

    • php.exe is used to run scripts locally in your Command Prompt;

    • php-cgi.exe is compliant with FastCGI protocol;

    • php7apache2_4.dll is PHP wrapped as an Apache 2.4 module;

    • And a few others too.

    In this case the docs are referring to php-cgi.exe

    The constant PHP_BINARY contains the path of the binary where PHP is currently executing from. Since XAMPP uses Apache, and Apache is most likely using PHP in it’s Apache module form, it makes sense that httpd.exe is recognized as the binary, since it is loading php7apache2_4.dll.

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