Errors compiling PHP 7.2 from source on a Raspberry Pi

Published Jan 12, 2019

The content here is under the Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license

The PHP version used is 7.2 directly from the git repository from github. Newer version might not work as expected. The version used to compile is the Raspbian (Raspbian Stretch with desktop and recommended software):

Version: November 2018
Release date: 2018-11-13
Kernel version: 4.14

Getting the source code

git clone https://github.com/php/php-src

Entering the cloned repository to start the compilation process

cd php-src

Change to the version 7.2 (maybe newer or older, as you wish)

git tag php-7.2.0

The following errors are sequential when trying to install PHP in a Raspberry Pi, the errors show up in the following commands:

./buildconf
./configure

Error (buildconf): autoconf out of date

Executed command: ./buildconf.

buildconf: checking installation...
buildconf: autoconf not found.
           You need autoconf version 2.68 or newer installed
           to build PHP from Git.
build/build.mk:36: fallo en las instrucciones para el objetivo 'buildmk.stamp'
make: *** [buildmk.stamp] Error 1

Solution (buildconf)

apt-get install autoconf

Success output (buildconf)

buildconf: checking installation...
buildconf: autoconf version 2.69 (ok)
rebuilding aclocal.m4
rebuilding configure
rebuilding main/php_config.h.in

Error (configure): bison out of date

Executed command ./configure

configure: WARNING: This bison version is not supported for regeneration of the Zend/PHP parsers (found: none, min: 204, excluded: ).

Solution bison

sudo apt-get install bison

Error (configure): rec2c not installed

Executed command: ./configure

checking for re2c... no
configure: error: You will need re2c 0.13.4 or later to generate PHP lexers.

Solution rec2c

sudo apt-get install re2c

Error (configure): libxml2 dev dependency not installed

Executed command: ./configure

checking libxml2 install dir... no
checking for xml2-config path...
configure: error: libxml2 not found. Please check your libxml2 installation.

Solution libxml2

sudo apt-get install libxml2-dev

Error (configure): sqlite3 dev dependency not installed

Executed command: ./configure

checking for sqlite3 files in default path... not found
configure: error: Please reinstall the sqlite distribution from http://www.sqlite.org

Solution sqlite3

sudo apt-get install libsqlite3-dev

Success output sqlite3

Generating files
configure: creating ./config.status
creating main/internal_functions.c
creating main/internal_functions_cli.c
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| License:                                                           |
| This software is subject to the PHP License, available in this     |
| distribution in the file LICENSE.  By continuing this installation |
| process, you are bound by the terms of this license agreement.     |
| If you do not agree with the terms of this license, you must abort |
| the installation process at this point.                            |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

Thank you for using PHP.

config.status: creating php7.spec
config.status: creating main/build-defs.h
config.status: creating scripts/phpize
config.status: creating scripts/man1/phpize.1
config.status: creating scripts/php-config
config.status: creating scripts/man1/php-config.1
config.status: creating sapi/cli/php.1
config.status: creating sapi/phpdbg/phpdbg.1
config.status: creating sapi/cgi/php-cgi.1
config.status: creating ext/phar/phar.1
config.status: creating ext/phar/phar.phar.1
config.status: creating main/php_config.h
config.status: executing default commands