Hi. I'm the maintainer of PHP in MacPorts and I'm in the process of  
updating our php5 port to version 5.3.0.

In PHP 5.2.x and earlier you had to choose which web SAPI you wanted  
-- Apache 1, Apache 2, or FastCGI. The CLI SAPI was always built in  
any case, in addition to the web SAPI you selected, but you couldn't  
have both an Apache SAPI and the FastCGI SAPI built at the same time;  
you had to run "./configure" and "make" twice each, and this is what  
my php5 port currently does to allow a user to install both an Apache  
SAPI and the FastCGI SAPI at the same time if desired.

On http://www.php.net/manual/en/migration53.sapi.php it says of PHP  
5.3 that "FastCGI is now always enabled and can not be disabled. See  
sapi/cgi/CHANGES for more details." The same text appears in the NEWS  
file. In sapi/cgi/CHANGES it says "Now fastcgi is always enabled".

Based on these statements, I assumed the FastCGI SAPI would now  
always be built, just like the CLI SAPI always gets built. But it  
appears that if you use --with-apxs2 or --with-apxs, PHP 5.3 does in  
fact disable the FastCGI SAPI, and only builds that Apache and CLI  
SAPIs, just like PHP 5.2.x did.


sapi/cgi/CHANGES also states "In PHP5.3 all additional configure  
options (except --enable-cgi) are removed" and "./configure --help"  
lists the option "--disable-cgi           Disable building CGI  
version of PHP". Using --disable-cgi, the FastCGI module does not get  
built.


So I believe the statement "FastCGI is now always enabled" is false,  
because FastCGI is not enabled if you request an Apache SAPI. And I  
believe the statement that it "can not be disabled" is false, because  
the --disable-cgi configure argument does disable it. I believe the  
correct documentation of PHP 5.3's capabilities would be, "The  
FastCGI module is now built by default, but can be disabled by using  
--disable-cgi".


Note: I did the above tests using 5.3.0RC4 not 5.3.0 final. This is  
my first time posting to a PHP mailing list. I wanted to check here  
for guidance before filing a bug for these issues.

I searched Google and the mailing list archive at marc.info and  
couldn't find a prior discussion of these issues relating to PHP 5.3,  
but if there is one and I've missed it I'd of course appreciate a  
link to it.


P.S: There is a typo on the mailing lists page's description of this  
list. It says "How to install PHP with partiucular configurations,  
and servers". That should be "particular" not "partiucular" and the  
comma should be removed.

http://www.php.net/mailing-lists.php