The undersigned, as thousands of others who work in IT, Apple has made a vow to his consecration as inseparable companion work, I am referring especially to Mac OS X. My MacBook Pro and before that my PowerBook G4 and I will stop here, have been and are still with me, not only for writing documentation, read and send email, but above all when it comes to creating software.

1. Mac
OS
X
Snow
Leopard:
IBM
Informix
IDS
11.5
+
PHP
5.3
1.1 Introduction
Since
IBM
has
extended
support
for
Informix
Dynamic
Server
(IDS)
also
Mac
OS
X
by
defining
a
winning
combination
of
the
two,
IBM
has
made
the
happiness
of
thousands
of
developers
and
DBAs
no
longer
have
to
work
on
a
remote
server
IDS.
In
this
article
we
will
see
how
to
install
and
configure
IBM
Informix
IDS
simple
steps
on
our
Mac
OS
X
11.5
Snow
Leopard.
The
special
shows
at
the
end
of
the
article
is
the
installation
of
the
informix
module
on
PHP
5.3,
note
that
PHP
5.3
is
part
of
Mac
OS
X
Snow
Leopard.
1.2
Installing
Informix
IDS
11.5
From
the
IBM
website
should
download
the
version
of
IBM
Informix
IDS
11.5
For
Mac
OS
X,
including
the
Developer
version
of
Informix
(To
download
registration
is
required
at
the
portal
IBM).
This
software
is
distributed
as
a
DMG
file
(iif.11.50.FC5DE.macosx64.dmg)
the
size
of
about
138MByte,
within
it
is
available
the
package
installer.
The
installation
process
is
very
simple,
there
are
no
special
instructions
to
follow
except
for
the
installation
directory
is
advisable
to
choose
the
directory
/opt/IBM/informix
directory
instead
of
/Application
proposed
by
the
installer.
Through
the
aid
of
the
figures
shown
below,
we
will
see
how
is
the
installation
process.
Figura
1
Installer
IDS
Informix
11.5
Copyright
©
2009
–
Antonio
Musarra
–
http://musarra.wordpress.com

2.
Figura
2
Running
the
installation
script
Figura
3
Request
the
administrator
password.
Figura
4
Installer
IDS
Informix
11.50
Copyright
©
2009
–
Antonio
Musarra
–
http://musarra.wordpress.com

3.
Figura
5
Installation
directory
to
be
changed
in
/opt/IBM/informix
Figura
6
IDS
components
that
will
be
installed
Figura
7
Separation
of
roles.
Leave
the
default
Copyright
©
2009
–
Antonio
Musarra
–
http://musarra.wordpress.com

4.
Figura
8
Creating
a
demo
IDS
instance.
Leave
the
default
Figura
9
IDS
Installation
Summary
Figura
10
Completed
installation
notes
Copyright
©
2009
–
Antonio
Musarra
–
http://musarra.wordpress.com

5.
Figura
11
Finish
Installation
The
installation
process,
in
addition
to
one
copy
of
the
software
in
the
directory
listed,
is
responsible
for
building
on
our
Mac
OS
X
user
informix,
it
will
be
used
to
perform
operations
normally
assigned
to
the
role
of
DBA.
In
the
next
section
we
will
see
the
configuration
of
the
operating
environment
and
initialization
of
Informix.
1.2 Configure
The
configuration
process
could
be
divided
into
two
phases:
• Configuration
execution
environment;
• Configuring
Informix.
The
preparation
of
the
operating
environment
requires
setting
some
environment
variables
listed
below:
• INFORMIXDIR
=>
Directory
Installation
Informix;
• INFORMIXSERVER
=>
The
name
given
to
the
instance
Informix;
• INFORMIXSQLHOSTS
=>
File
di
configurazione
SQL
HOSTS;
• ONCONFIG
=>
Configuration
file
SQL
HOSTS;
• DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH
=>
Path
Informix
Libs;
• TERMCAP
=>
Configuration
terminals
files;
• DB_LOCALE
=>
Set
the
Locale
for
DB;
• CLIENT_LOCALE
=>
Set
the
locale
for
the
client.
You
can
set
the
Informix
environment
variables
directly
within
the
informix
user
profile
file
(see
Listing
1).
To
configure
Informix
we
should
make
changes
to
the
standard
configuration,
there
are
two
configuration
files
on
which
to
act,
both
defined
by
two
environment
variables:
ONCONFIG
and
INFORMIXSQLHOSTS.
Copyright
©
2009
–
Antonio
Musarra
–
http://musarra.wordpress.com

6. For
the
file
defined
by
ONCONFIG
is
advisable
to
amend
sections
that
cover:
• Root
Dbspace
Configuration
Parameters;
• System
Configuration
Parameters;
• Network
Configuration
Parameters
Proceeding
with
the
order
mentioned
above
is
going
to
change
and
/
or
add
the
configurations
listed
below
(see
Listing
2).
Listato
2
Changing
the
standard
configuration
of
Informix.
###################################################################
# Root Dbspace Configuration Parameters
###################################################################
ROOTPATH $INFORMIXDIR/dbs/amusarra_ifx.rootdbs
MIRRORPATH $INFORMIXDIR/dbs/amusarra_ifx.root_mirror
###################################################################
# System Configuration Parameters
###################################################################
DBSERVERNAME amusarra_ifx
DBSERVERALIASES shirus,amusarra_shm
###################################################################
# Network Configuration Parameters
###################################################################
NETTYPE soctcp,1,30,NET
I
preferred
to
place
the
files
in
the
root
dbspace
dbs
instead
of
tmp
and
give
them
the
name
of
Informix
as
a
suffix.
In
the
standard
configuration
is
the
only
protocol
configured
ipcshm,
in
our
configuration
was
added
to
the
protocol
soctcp.
I
suggest
the
reading
of
official
documentation
on
Informix
NETTYPE
Configuration
Parameter.
Listato
3
Changing
configuration
SQL
Hosts
# IANA (www.iana.org) assigned port number/service names for Informix:
# sqlexec 9088/tcp
# sqlexec-ssl 9089/tcp
#demo_on onipcshm on_hostname on_servername
#demo_se seipcpip se_hostname sqlexec
amusarra_ifx onsoctcp amusarra-mobile.local sqlexec
shirus onsoctcp amusarra-mobile.local sqlexec-admin
amusarra_shm onipcshm amusarra-mobile.local amusarra-mobile
Listing
3
shows
the
configuration
file
sqlhosts
appropriately
modified
according
to
our
needs
(for
more
information
refer
to
the
official
documentation
about
The
Informix
IDS
sqlhosts
File).
The
IANA
has
defined
TCP
ports
specific
to
the
services
Informix,
these
must
be
added
to
the
configuration
files
of
network
services
(see
Listing
4).
Copyright
©
2009
–
Antonio
Musarra
–
http://musarra.wordpress.com

7.
Listato
4
Adding
TCP
ports
for
network
services
Informix
(/etc/services).
sqlexec-admin 9087/tcp # IBM Informix SQL Interface - Admin Port
sqlexec 9088/tcp # IBM Informix SQL Interface
sqlexec-ssl 9089/tcp # IBM Informix SQL Interface - Encrypted
1.3 Preparation
and
Initializing
Informix
Before
proceeding
with
the
process
of
initializing
Informix,
you
must
create
the
file
"empty"
of
the
root
dbspace
by
giving
them
permission
to
read
and
write
only
for
the
user
informix.
As
user
informix,
we
proceed
as
shown
in
Listing
5.
Listato
5
Creating
directory
and
file
"empty"
root
dbspace
amusarra-mobile:~ informix$ mkdir $INFORMIXDIR/dbs
amusarra-mobile:~ informix$ touch $INFORMIXDIR/dbs/amusarra_ifx.rootdbs
amusarra-mobile:~ informix$ touch $INFORMIXDIR/dbs/amusarra_ifx.rootdbs_mirror
amusarra-mobile:~ informix$ chmod 660 $INFORMIXDIR/dbs/amusarra_ifx.rootdbs
amusarra-mobile:~ informix$ chmod 660
/opt/IBM/informix/dbs/amusarra_ifx.rootdbs_mirror
Remember
that
the
INFORMIXDIR
environment
variable
refers
to
the
installation
directory
of
IBM
Informix
IDS,
in
our
case
the
variable
INFORMIXDIR
is:
/opt/IBM/Informix.
The
conditions
to
initialize
our
instance
we
are
all,
then
proceed
with
the
initialization
by
running
the
command:
amusarra-mobile:~ informix$ oninit -y -i –v
OnInit
is
the
command
responsible
for
initializing
the
dbspaces
and
the
shared
memory
while
leaving
online
informix
instance.
The
option
(-­‐v)
command
allows
you
to
see
OnInit
output
details
of
transactions
executed
during
the
initialization
process
(see
Listing
6).
Copyright
©
2009
–
Antonio
Musarra
–
http://musarra.wordpress.com

8. Listato
6
Part
of
the
command
output
OnInit
Checking group membership to determine server run mode...succeeded
Reading configuration file '/opt/IBM/informix/etc/onconfig.std'...succeeded
Creating /INFORMIXTMP/.infxdirs...succeeded
Checking config parameters...succeeded
Allocating and attaching to shared memory...succeeded
Creating resident pool 14708 kbytes...succeeded
Allocating 200016 kbytes for buffer pool of 4K page size...succeeded
Creating infos file "/opt/IBM/informix/etc/.infos.amusarra_ifx"...succeeded
Linking conf file "/opt/IBM/informix/etc/.conf.amusarra_ifx"...succeeded
Initializing rhead structure...succeeded
Writing to infos file...succeeded
Initialization of Encryption...succeeded
Initializing ASF...succeeded
Forking 1 'soctcp' listener threads...succeeded
Forking 1 'soctcp' listener threads...succeeded
Forking 1 'ipcshm' listener threads...succeeded
Starting tracing...succeeded
Initializing 8 flushers...succeeded
Initializing log/checkpoint information...succeeded
Initializing dbspaces...succeeded
Opening primary chunks...succeeded
Opening mirror chunks...succeeded
Validating chunks...succeeded
Creating database partition...succeeded
To
verify
that
went
the
right
way,
with
the
database
in
an
on-­‐line,
execute
the
command:
amusarra-mobile:~ informix$ onstat –
The
output
should
be
similar
to:
IBM Informix Dynamic Server Version 11.50.FC5DE -- On-Line --
Up 00:00:25 -- 250928 Kbytes
1.4 Creating
Stores
Demo
database
Our
Informix
instance
is
online,
we
will
then
create
at
least
a
data
base
on
which
to
perform
all
our
tests.
IBM
Informix
IDS
includes
a
set
of
demo
schemas
complete
data,
we
will
use
the
db
Stores
Demo.
To
create
the
schema
and
load
data
(always
as
user
informix)
execute
the
command:
amusarra-mobile:~ informix$ dbaccessdemo
To
verify
that
the
schema
and
data
have
been
created
successfully
executed
a
connection
to
the
database
stores_demo
and
a
select
query
on
the
Customer
table,
we
proceed
by
running
the
command:
amusarra-mobile:~ informix$ echo "SELECT * FROM CUSTOMER;" | dbaccess stores_demo -
Output
the
command
will
return
the
records
in
the
customer
table
in
the
database
stores_demo
(see
Listing
7).
Copyright
©
2009
–
Antonio
Musarra
–
http://musarra.wordpress.com

9. Listato
7
Output
of
the
query
on
the
Customer
table
Database selected.
….
customer_num 128
fname Frank
lname Lessor
company Phoenix University
address1 Athletic Department
address2 1817 N. Thomas Road
city Phoenix
state AZ
zipcode 85008
phone 602-533-1817
28 row(s) retrieved.
Database closed.
Now
that
we
have
the
Informix
instance
on-­‐line
and
the
data
base
stores_demo,
the
next
step
is
to
install
the
Informix
module
for
PHP
5.3,
that
way
we
can
have
access
to
Informix
using
the
scripting
language
world's
most
popular
.
1.5 PHP
&
Informix
PHP
and
MySQL
or
PHP
and
PostgreSQL
are
common
to
many
pairs
of
opposite
pairs
PHP
and
Informix
almost
unknown,
it
might
be
the
nature
and
scope
of
commercial
use
of
Informix
to
make
the
couple
less
known.
Since
version
5.2
of
the
PHP
Informix
module
is
no
longer
available
because
abandoned
in
favor
of
the
Informix
PDO
Module.
In
the
rest
of
the
article
we
will
see
how
to
compile
the
"old"
module
for
Informix
makes
working
on
version
5.3
of
PHP.
1.5.1 Building
and
installing
the
module
Informix
Informix
module
is
not
available
on
version
5.3
of
PHP
installed
on
our
Mac
OS
X,
you
must
then
download
the
source
code
of
the
module
directly
from
the
site
http://pecl.php.net/package/informix.
The
tar.gz
archive
of
the
module
is
not
available,
no
matter,
checks
out
the
source
of
the
module
directly
from
the
SVN
repository
using
the
command:
amusarra-mobile:~ informix$ svn co http://svn.php.net/repository/pecl/informix/trunk
php_ext_informix
In
this
way
we
get
the
source
Informix
module
into
the
directory
~/php_ext_informix.
In
Listing
8
shows
the
result
obtained
by
the
operation
performed
on
the
checkout
SVN
repository.
Copyright
©
2009
–
Antonio
Musarra
–
http://musarra.wordpress.com

10. Listato
8
Operating
checkout
form
Informix.
amusarra-mobile:~ informix$ svn co http://svn.php.net/repository/pecl/informix/trunk
php_ext_informix
A php_ext_informix/config.w32
A php_ext_informix/config.m4
A php_ext_informix/php_informix.h
A php_ext_informix/Makefile.frag
A php_ext_informix/ifx.dsp
A php_ext_informix/ifx.ec
A php_ext_informix/CREDITS
A php_ext_informix/php_informix_includes.h
U php_ext_informix
Checked out revision 290780.
We
move
into
the
directory
~/php_ext_informix
and
proceed
with
the
build
of
the
module.
amusarra-mobile:php_ext_informix informix$ phpize
amusarra-mobile:php_ext_informix informix$ ./configure
Before
continuing
with
the
make
of
the
Informix
Module,
you
must
edit
the
Makefile
to
ensure
that
the
module
is
linked
with
Informix
library
checkapi.o,
otherwise
the
use
of
the
module
will
produce
the
error:
undefined symbol: ifx_checkAPI.
Inside
the
Makefile
must
add
the
directive
INFORMIX_SHARED_LIBADD
use
the
library
Informix
checkapi.o:
/opt/IBM/informix/lib/esql/checkapi.o
Then
proceed
with
compiling
and
installing
the
module
Informix.
The
user
informix
must
be
defined
as
sudores
or
you
must
run
the
installation
as
root.
amusarra-mobile:php_ext_informix informix$ make
amusarra-mobile:php_ext_informix informix$ sudo make install
The
module
will
be
installed
in
/
usr/lib/php/extensions/no-­‐debug-­‐non-­‐
zts-­‐20090626
/.
To
verify
the
correct
link
to
the
library
Informix
checkapi.o
just
use
the
command
nm
coupled
with
the
command
grep.
The
output
should
return
the
entry
point
ifx_chekAPI.
amusarra-mobile:php_ext_informix informix$ nm /usr/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-
non-zts-20090626/informix.so | grep checkAPI
000000000000a0a0 T _ifx_checkAPI
Copyright
©
2009
–
Antonio
Musarra
–
http://musarra.wordpress.com

11. 1.5.2 Activating
and
test
module
Informix
To
activate
the
module
just
installed,
you
must
edit
(as
root)
the
configuration
file
php.ini
(located
in
/etc)
and
add
the
extensions
section
directive:
extension=informix.so
You
can
verify
that
the
module
Informix
is
active
by
running
the
command:
amusarra-mobile:php_ext_informix informix$ php -i|grep Informix
Informix support => enabled
The
command
responded
by
confirming
the
activation
of
the
module
Informix,
you
can
still
use
the
php-­‐m
command
to
verify
that
the
module
is
active.
At
this
time
the
Informix
module
is
operational
only
when
used
from
PHP
CLI
is
not
available
under
Apache
because
he
does
not
see
the
Informix
environment
variables
needed
for
the
proper
functioning
of
the
module.
The
log
file
of
Apache
(see
Listing
9)
is
evident
as
the
Informix
module
is
not
loaded
because
of
the
failure
to
load
Informix
libraries
required
by
the
module.
Variable
DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH
(which
indicates
the
location
of
libraries
Informix)
must
be
visible
to
the
Apache
process.
Listato
9
Extract
from
the
log
files
of
Apache,
Informix
obvious
error
loading
module
PHP Warning: PHP Startup: Unable to load dynamic library '/usr/lib/php/extensions/no-
debug-non-zts-20090626/informix.so' - dlopen(/usr/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-
20090626/informix.so, 9): Library not loaded: isqls09b.dylibn Referenced from:
/usr/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20090626/informix.son Reason: image not
found in Unknown on line 0
In
Mac
OS
X
10.4
(Tiger)
Apple
introduced
a
new
system
that
controls
basic
services
this
system
is
called
launchd.
The
Apache
service
is
therefore
governed
by
launchd
for
security
reasons
reset
the
environment
variables
to
the
bare
minimum,
which
is
why
the
module
failed
to
load
Informix,
Informix
environment
variables
are
not
visible
to
the
Apache
process.
Launchd
configuration,
or
rather
of
the
process
to
be
managed
is
by
means
of
a
plist
file
type,
while
the
file
/
etc
/
launchd.conf
contains
directives
(eg
commands
to
set
environment
variables)
for
launchd.
Our
goal
is
therefore
to
make
visible
the
Informix
environment
variables
serving
Apache,
the
configuration
file
/etc/launchd.conf
add
the
directives
shown
in
Listing
10.
Copyright
©
2009
–
Antonio
Musarra
–
http://musarra.wordpress.com

12. Listato
10
Launchd
config
file
for
the
set
of
environment
variables
Informix
setenv INFORMIXDIR /opt/IBM/informix
setenv ONCONFIG onconfig.std
setenv INFORMIXSERVER amusarra_ifx
setenv INFORMIXSQLHOSTS /opt/IBM/informix/etc/sqlhosts
setenv DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH
/opt/IBM/informix/lib:/opt/IBM/informix/lib/esql:/opt/IBM/informix/lib:/opt/IBM/inform
ix/lib/cli
setenv CLIENT_LOCALE en_US.819
We
have
ensured
that
the
processes
controlled
by
launchd
can
access
the
Informix
environment
variables.
At
this
point,
you
need
to
restart
the
Apache
service
with
the
usual
command
apachectl
(or
System
Preferences)
and
make
sure
the
Informix
module
is
properly
loaded,
you
can
verify
this
with
a
simple
PHP
script
that
has
inside
a
call
to
phpinfo
(),
in
Figure
1,
the
extract
of
section
Informix.
Figura
1
Sample
phpinfo
with
evidence
of
the
configuration
module
Informix.
In
one
of
the
previous
sections
we
have
loaded
the
database
on
our
Stores_Demo
Informix
instance,
at
the
conclusion
of
this
article
we
will
make
a
simple
PHP
script
(see
Listing
11)
that
shows
in
tabular
form,
records
that
exist
on
the
Orders
table.
Copyright
©
2009
–
Antonio
Musarra
–
http://musarra.wordpress.com

13. Listato
11
PHP
script
for
the
selection
of
records
from
the
Orders
table
<?php
$conn_id = ifx_connect ("stores_demo@amusarra_ifx", "informix", "password");
$res_id = ifx_query("select * from orders", $conn_id);
if (! $res_id) {
printf("Can't select orders : %sn<br />%s<br />n",
ifx_error(),ifx_errormsg());
ifx_close($conn_id);
die;
}
ifx_htmltbl_result($res_id, "border="1"");
ifx_free_result($res_id);
ifx_close($conn_id);
?>
Figura
2
Result
script
PHP
Listing
11
Copyright
©
2009
–
Antonio
Musarra
–
http://musarra.wordpress.com