Configuration directives

Tells whether the short form (<? ?>) of PHP's open tag should be allowed. If you want to use PHP in combination with XML, you can disable this option in order to use <?xml ?> inline. Otherwise, you can print it with PHP, for example: <?php echo '<?xml version="1.0"'; ?>. Also if disabled, you must use the long form of the PHP open tag (<?php ?>).

Enables the use of ASP-like <% %> tags in addition to the usual <?php ?> tags. This includes the variable-value printing shorthand of <%= $value %>. For more information, see Escaping from HTML.

The number of significant digits displayed in floating point numbers.

Enforce year 2000 compliance (will cause problems with non-compliant browsers)

Whether to enable the ability to force arguments to be passed by reference at function call time. This method is deprecated and is likely to be unsupported in future versions of PHP/Zend. The encouraged method of specifying which arguments should be passed by reference is in the function declaration. You're encouraged to try and turn this option Off and make sure your scripts work properly with it in order to ensure they will work with future versions of the language (you will receive a warning each time you use this feature, and the argument will be passed by value instead of by reference).

See also References Explained.

Decides whether PHP may expose the fact that it is installed on the server (e.g. by adding its signature to the Web server header). It is no security threat in any way, but it makes it possible to determine whether you use PHP on your server or not.

This sets the maximum amount of memory in bytes that a script is allowed to allocate. This helps prevent poorly written scripts for eating up all available memory on a server. In order to use this directive you must have enabled it at compile time. So, your configure line would have included: --enable-memory-limit. Note that you have to set it to -1 if you don't want any limit for your memory.

If enabled, then Environment, GET, POST, Cookie, and Server variables can be found in the global associative arrays $_ENV, $_GET, $_POST, $_COOKIE, and $_SERVER.

Note that as of PHP 4.0.3, track_vars is always turned on.

The separator used in PHP generated URLs to separate arguments.

List of separator(s) used by PHP to parse input URLs into variables.

Set the order of the EGPCS (Environment, GET, POST, Cookie, Server) variable parsing. The default setting of this directive is "EGPCS". Setting this to "GP", for example, will cause PHP to completely ignore environment variables, cookies and server variables, and to overwrite any GET method variables with POST-method variables of the same name.

See also register_globals.

Tells whether or not to register the EGPCS (Environment, GET, POST, Cookie, Server) variables as global variables. For example; if register_globals = on, the url http://www.example.com/test.php?id=3 will produce $id. Or, $DOCUMENT_ROOT from $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']. You may want to turn this off if you don't want to clutter your scripts' global scope with user data. As of PHP 4.2.0, this directive defaults to off. It's preferred to go through PHP Predefined Variables instead, such as the superglobals: $_ENV, $_GET, $_POST, $_COOKIE, and $_SERVER. Please read the security chapter on Using register_globals for related information.

Please note that register_globals cannot be set at runtime (ini_set()). Although, you can use .htaccess if your host allows it as described above. An example .htaccess entry: php_flag register_globals on.

Tells PHP whether to declare the argv & argc variables (that would contain the GET information).

See also command line. Also, this directive became available in PHP 4.0.0 and was always "on" before that.

Sets max size of post data allowed. This setting also affects file upload. To upload large files, this value must be larger than upload_max_filesize.

If memory limit is enabled by your configure script, memory_limit also affects file uploading. Generally speaking, memory_limit should be larger than post_max_size.

Set the order of GET/POST/COOKIE variable parsing. The default setting of this directive is "GPC". Setting this to "GP", for example, will cause PHP to completely ignore cookies and to overwrite any GET method variables with POST-method variables of the same name.

Specifies the name of a file that is automatically parsed before the main file. The file is included as if it was called with the include() function, so include_path is used.

The special value none disables auto-prepending.

Specifies the name of a file that is automatically parsed after the main file. The file is included as if it was called with the include() function, so include_path is used.

The special value none disables auto-appending.

As of 4.0b4, PHP always outputs a character encoding by default in the Content-type: header. To disable sending of the charset, simply set it to be empty.

Always populate the $HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA variable.

Allow handling of WebDAV http requests within PHP scripts (eg. PROPFIND, PROPPATCH, MOVE, COPY, etc..) If you want to get the post data of those requests, you have to set always_populate_raw_post_data as well.

Specifies a list of directories where the require(), include() and fopen_with_path() functions look for files. The format is like the system's PATH environment variable: a list of directories separated with a colon in UNIX or semicolon in Windows.

Example 4-3. UNIX include_path include_path=".:/php/includes"

Example 4-4. Windows include_path include_path=".;c:\php\includes"

Using a . in the include path allows for relative includes as it means the current directory.

PHP's "root directory" on the server. Only used if non-empty. If PHP is configured with safe mode, no files outside this directory are served. If PHP was not compiled with FORCE_REDIRECT, you SHOULD set doc_root if you are running php as a CGI under any web server (other than IIS) The alternative is to use the cgi.force_redirect configuration below.

The base name of the directory used on a user's home directory for PHP files, for example public_html.

In what directory PHP should look for dynamically loadable extensions. See also: enable_dl, and dl().

Which dynamically loadable extensions to load when PHP starts up.

cgi.force_redirect is necessary to provide security running PHP as a CGI under most web servers. Left undefined, PHP turns this on by default. You can turn it off AT YOUR OWN RISK.

If cgi.force_redirect is turned on, and you are not running under Apache or Netscape (iPlanet) web servers, you MAY need to set an environment variable name that PHP will look for to know it is OK to continue execution.

FastCGI under IIS (on WINNT based OS) supports the ability to impersonate security tokens of the calling client. This allows IIS to define the security context that the request runs under. mod_fastcgi under Apache does not currently support this feature (03/17/2002) Set to 1 if running under IIS. Default is zero.

Whether or not to allow HTTP file uploads. See also the upload_max_filesize, upload_tmp_dir, and post_max_size directives.

The temporary directory used for storing files when doing file upload. Must be writable by whatever user PHP is running as. If not specified PHP will use the system's default.

The maximum size of an uploaded file.

DNS name or IP address of host used by the debugger.

Port number used by the debugger.

Whether the debugger is enabled.