BANGALORE, INDIA: The .NET development framework facilitates writing applications in more than one programming language like VB or C#. While writing a
.NET application, you can always opt for a language of our choice. You can even write each module (say a Windows form or a Web form) of an application in a different language.
On the other hand, PHP is a popular open source scripting language which is used typically for writing Web based applications. Being a scripting language, applications written in PHP are interpreted and not compiled.
With a piece of software/plugin called Phalanger, you can use PHP as one of the languages for writing .Net applications. Plus these applications, written in PHP will be compiled – as with any application written in .NET language. Plus, Phalanger offers an extension/plugin for Visual Studio which allows you to write PHP based .Net applications in Visual Studio 2008 (the latest in the Visual Studio family).
Get, set and go...
Assuming that you have already installed and are running .NET 2.0 (or above) framework and Visual Studio 2008, you require to do the following to download and install Phalanger:
1. Download phalanger-2.0-march-2008.zip from the URL http://www.codeplex.com/Phalanger/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=11564#ReleaseFiles.
2. Unzip the file and run the installer via setup.exe. The installer also sets up IIS web server for PHP (to be precise, for PHP Phalanger).
3. To write PHP Phalanger applications in Visual Studio, you need to install the Phalanger extension which is a separate download.
4. Go to the above mentioned link and download the file vsintegration-2.0-march-2008.zip. Unzip the file and run vsiip.msi.
Configure IIS Web Server
To configure IIS on Windows XP to use Phalanger, execute the following steps:
1. Goto Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Internet Information Services.
2.Expand the tree (in the left pane) till you see "Default Web Site". Right click on it and select Properties.
3.Click on the "Home Directory" tab and then click on the Configuration button. Under the Mappings tab, click on Add. Type in the following for the Executable and the Extension:
Executable: C:\WINDOWS\ Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\aspnet_isapi.dll
Extension: .php
4. Leave the other settings to their default. Restart IIS.
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Besides web applications, you can write assembly/class libraries, console applications and Windows forms based applications using Visual Studio as the RAD tool and PHP as the language.
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