Skip to main content

By clicking Submit, you agree to the developerWorks terms of use.

The first time you sign into developerWorks, a profile is created for you. Select information in your developerWorks profile is displayed to the public, but you may edit the information at any time. Your first name, last name (unless you choose to hide them), and display name will accompany the content that you post.

All information submitted is secure.

  • Close [x]

The first time you sign in to developerWorks, a profile is created for you, so you need to choose a display name. Your display name accompanies the content you post on developerworks.

Please choose a display name between 3-31 characters. Your display name must be unique in the developerWorks community and should not be your email address for privacy reasons.

By clicking Submit, you agree to the developerWorks terms of use.

All information submitted is secure.

  • Close [x]

Select a language:

  • Close [x]
  • Close [x]

A step-by-step guide to publishing your own PEAR channels

Build a private channel to distribute PHP packages

Nathan A. Good, Author and Software Engineer, Freelance Developer
Nathan A. Good lives in the Twin Cities area in Minnesota. Professionally, he does software development, software architecture, and systems administration. When he's not writing software, he enjoys building PCs and servers, reading about and working with new technologies, and trying to get his friends to make the move to open source software. He's written and co-written many books and articles, including Professional Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3, Regular Expression Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach, Regular Expression Recipes for Windows Developers: A Problem-Solution Approach, PHP 5 Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach, and his latest: Foundations of PEAR: Rapid PHP Development.

Summary:  The PHP Extension and Application Repository (PEAR) is a collection of PHP packages built to ease the development required to build an application. V1.4 of the PEAR package manager introduced the concept of channels, which are a way to organize and deliver packages that can be installed with the package manager. This tutorial discusses channels, introduces and explains the channel.xml file, and demonstrates how to build a channel for distributing packages. Channels are ordinarily used to expose PEAR packages through the Internet, but enterprises can uses channels to make distribution of enterprise-specific PHP code easy.

Date:  30 Jan 2007
Level:  Intermediate

Activity:  3824 views
Comments:  

Troubleshooting

I ran into a few problems when I was working on the start of an implementation for a channel server.

The first issue is that I built the package.xml file by hand. That isn't an issue in itself, but when the pear package command is used to build the package, the package file is reformatted. My implementation of the getDownloadURL function pulled the contents from the old file and returned it as a result of the XML RPC call. This caused an error because the package.xml downloaded didn't match that returned by the xml-rpc call. I suggest using the PEAR_PackageFile class to build your package file so you don't have issues. If you'd rather build the file by hand, make sure the file is the same (including indenting) as the version put into the .tgz file created by the pear package command. I found it useful more than once to pull the generated package.xml file out of the .tgz file and inspect it.

If you get unexpected results from the XML-RPC commands after putting new versions of the xmlrpc.php file in place, make sure your Web server isn't caching anything. Caching can cause unexpected results because you make changes but don't see them reflected.

9 of 12 | Previous | Next

Comments

Back to top

Close [x]

Help: Update or add to My dW interests

What's this?

This little timesaver lets you update your My developerWorks profile with just one click! The general subject of this content (AIX and UNIX, Information Management, Lotus, Rational, Tivoli, WebSphere, Java, Linux, Open source, SOA and Web services, Web development, or XML) will be added to the interests section of your profile, if it's not there already. You only need to be logged in to My developerWorks.

And what's the point of adding your interests to your profile? That's how you find other users with the same interests as yours, and see what they're reading and contributing to the community. Your interests also help us recommend relevant developerWorks content to you.

View your My developerWorks profile

Return from help

Close [x]

Help: Remove from My dW interests

What's this?

Removing this interest does not alter your profile, but rather removes this piece of content from a list of all content for which you've indicated interest. In a future enhancement to My developerWorks, you'll be able to see a record of that content.

View your My developerWorks profile

Return from help

static.content.url=http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/js/artrating/
SITE_ID=1
Zone=Open source
ArticleID=192277
TutorialTitle=A step-by-step guide to publishing your own PEAR channels
publish-date=01302007
author1-email=mail@nathanagood.com
author1-email-cc=

Table of contents

9 of 12 | Previous | Next

Next steps from IBM

With the no-charge DB2 Express-C, Zend Core PHP, and Java you can develop advanced Web 2.0 applications quickly that matter.

Tags

Help
Use the search field to find all types of content in My developerWorks with that tag.

Use the slider bar to see more or fewer tags.

Popular tags shows the top tags for this particular content zone (for example, Java technology, Linux, WebSphere).

My tags shows your tags for this particular content zone (for example, Java technology, Linux, WebSphere).

Use the search field to find all types of content in My developerWorks with that tag. Popular tags shows the top tags for this particular content zone (for example, Java technology, Linux, WebSphere). My tags shows your tags for this particular content zone (for example, Java technology, Linux, WebSphere).

 

Dig deeper into Open source on developerWorks

Try IBM PureSystems. No charge.

IBM PureSystems on a kaleideoscope background

Experience today!

Get started with the cloud-based trial and pattern development kit.

Share this page:

  • Close [x]

Follow developerWorks:

  • Close [x]