# PHP and Oracle Manual


By Ben Ramsey

Published on June 13, 2007


[Maggie](http://maggienelson.com/) writes about an [Oracle problem over which we were pulling out our hair](http://web.archive.org/web/20070616131259/http://www.objectivelyoriented.com/2007/06/when_php_and_oracle_assume_the.html). In the end, the solution was fairly simple, but I'll let you read her post for all the details. I'll just mention that [Christopher Jones](http://blogs.oracle.com/opal/) pointed me to a freely available book he and [Alison Holloway](http://blogs.oracle.com/alison/) wrote specifically for PHP developers using Oracle: [The Underground PHP and Oracle Manual](https://blogs.oracle.com/opal/entry/bigger_better_faster).

Christopher says, "The book is designed to bridge the gap between the many PHP and the many Oracle texts available." This is a must-read for anyone using Oracle and PHP together, and they continually maintain it and keep it up-to-date.

On page 80 of the manual, it states:

> If you are using an Oracle Database 10g Release 2 database other than the Express Edition ("XE"), you may need to give the Apache process access to Oracle's libraries and globalization data. Refer to the `$ORACLE_HOME/install/changePerm.sh` script. Each time you restart Apache, make sure you have the same environment variables set for Oracle. In particular `ORACLE_HOME` should always be set.

Wiser words were never writ…