Running ZendServerGateway on the embedded PHP 5.4 Server.

So you have discovered ZendServerGateway and you are like, “Wow, this makes web services easy”. However, you quickly discover that there is a little magic behind the scenes, and that this add-on works best within the context of Zend Server 6. That can be a little frustrating, especially if you or your organization does not use Zend Server 6. Never fear, there is a way around this “implied” requirement. In just a moment I will walk the reader through setting up the embedded PHP 5.4 webserver to utilize the ZendServerGateway. All the steps should easily translate to whatever environment you use for serving your PHP pages. I am going to assume a Window environment for development.

1. Alright, I said you DON’T NEED to RUN Zend Server 6, but you will still need to download and install it on your workstation. This is so we can get a copy of the ZendServerGateway code that can be easily copied.
2. Once you have downloaded and installed Zend Server 6, go to the C:\Program Files (x86)\Zend\ZendServer\share directory. Within this directory you will see, amongst others, 2 directories that are important; ZendFramework2 and ZendServerGateway.
3. Copy these two directories to the vendor folder of your Web Services Project folder.
4. Rename the ZendFramework2 folder to ZF2.
5. Open the index.php file within the public directory of your Web Services Project folder. Find the following lines of code:

   Find:

   } elseif (is_dir(__DIR__ . ‘vendor/ZF2/library’)) {
   

   $zf2Path = __DIR__ . ‘vendor/ZF2/library’;
   

   }

Change to:

} elseif (is_dir(APPLICATION_PATH . ‘/vendor/ZF2/library’)) {

        $zf2Path = APPLICATION_PATH . ‘/vendor/ZF2/library’;

}

Find:

} elseif (is_dir(__DIR__ . ‘/vendor/ZendServerGateway’)) {

        $zsModsPath = __DIR__ . ‘/vendor/’;

}

Change to:

} elseif (is_dir(APPLICATION_PATH . ‘/vendor/ZendServerGateway’)) {

        $zsModsPath = APPLICATION_PATH . ‘/vendor/’;

}

1. Now either open up a CMD/terminal window. Open the directory where your Web Services Project located. Enter the public directory and issue the following command:

php –S localhost:8080 (or whatever port you wish).

1. Congratulations, your Web Services Project should now be running without using Zend Server 6!

Please note, I have not “hammered” this solution. Everything has worked as expected after the above changes to my environment; however, this doesn’t imply that this is a completely stable solution. So in summation, be careful before you use this solution in a production environment.

-Michael