My thanks to the contributors and for the resource documentation that:
a) has confirmed that writing extensions without recompiling PHP is possible b) have provided sample code that requires recompilation of PHP As a Linux newbie but experienced Windows programmer I do not have the arcane knowledge to infer from the recompile-PHP sample how to modify it to generate a must-recompile-php sample to a standalone extension. I haven't used make in twenty years, and autoconf is alien to me. I am getting to grips with .so (shared object) libraries in Unix, but I am in the dark and my effort would be greatly expedited by someone knowledgeable in the art. I therefore re-interate my request for a complete walkthrough for writing an extension that does not require recompilation of php but can be treated as a simple external standalone project, for later inclusion into the Apache/PHP module by dynamic linking. I have installed and am running Suse 9.3, with Apache 2.0 and Php 5, all from the Suse distribution. I have downloaded the source for Php 5.1.1, but while I have compiled such (in the course of the build-extension-with-recompile) I do not wish to rely on having to recompile PHP every time I wish to build an extension. I have not therefore attempted to replace the distribution-Php with the compiled-Php. At this point, my need for such assistance is critical, as a client project is stalled for lack of it. I appreciate that money is a dirty word in Linux, but time and money are being wasted for want of these answers, so that I would be more than happy to provide £100 for the first proven and effective replies in each of these categories (all of which may happily be 'scooped' by or paid to a single person): i) a walkthrough of the exact steps + sample code to write an extension without requiring re-compilation of Php and without access to Php source code ii) as above but with access to Php source code iii) as above (either i or ii) but with instructions to allow the project to be initiated and compiled within the KDE development environment Resulting object (presumably .so) to be accessible in a distribution release of Apache/Php with only minor modification of a client's Apache/Php config settings.