Dynamically installing modules on LINUX?

[RDFrame]

Hey everyone,

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but I'm having a bit of tension with a client's server admin ATM.

Just wondering, is there any way I can dynamically install modules into PHP after it's already been compiled and installed? I need several modules added to a current installation including GD, Exif, Freetype, CURL, etc. Correct me if I'm wrong, but these all have to be included during compile time, right?

Oh, and this is a LINUX server, and I don't have root access. I simply have access to the 'php5' account, whatever that means. Or maybe I'm just ignorant and uninformed, and PHP works similar to Perl in some way, where you can easily install any modules with ease after compile?

Thanks,
Matt

[kyberfabrikken]

Those are PHP extensions. Extensions are binaries, which are dynamically linked, meaning, that you don't need to recompile PHP to use them -- just enable them in php.ini. They need to exist on the server though, so if they aren't already compiled, you need root access to build them (Or have you admin build them for you).

[Hammer65]

You can enable them via php.ini as mentioned above, or you can do it via your script, using the dl() function. It is possible to have your own custom ini file in PHP 5 as well.

If the admin is claiming that there is no other way to load extensions, you may have to go that route to get them enabled. Hopefully what you want is bundled with PHP, some extensions require certain libraries to be installed, in order to work.