PHP and MySQL with Apache on Mac OS X

The process of installing the *AMP (Apache, MySQL, PHP) on Mac OS X is basically like the typical install of LAMP.

First, to start the web server, go to system preferences, turn sharing on, and check the Web Server check box. This enables the /Library/WebServer directory to be open on the web. The web address will be displayed within the system preferences pane for the sharing. The /Library/WebServer/Documents folder will now host the files for your web server. An HTML file can be held here.

To add PHP, go to the http.conf file and uncomment the LoadModule directive for PHP. A default install of PHP is already installed on Mac OS X. Restart Apache and now a PHP file can be place in the /Library/WebServer/Documents folder and it will process as usual.

To add MySQL, the MySQL package for Mac OS X must be downloaded from MySQL for Mac OS X

website. It is necessary to make some configurations for your system to run MySQL. The configuration of MySQL on Mac OS X can be accomplished by following the directions on that website.

PHP

PHP is a scripting language particularly designed for web development. It can be used for some server administration as well. There are many pros and, unfortunately, many cons for using PHP. Some of the pros are that it is free, open-source, easy-to-use, powerful, easy to find code samples, tutorials, and documentation, and many others. Some of the cons are that it is easy to write "bad" code with, it is slow, it is hard to find out what your code is doing internally, and bugs can potentially exist. PHP is widely used and respected amongst the development community. PHP 5 has the power to be object-oriented and PHP 6 is even heading further in that direction. It is easy to set PHP up on a Linux, Mac, or Windows machine. It works seamlessly with Apache, MySQL, and PostgreSQL.

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