Can ActiveX controls work in PHP running on Apache On a Windows Machine?

[Geoff Coope]

Hi all

I created an ASP ActiveX DLL file in Delphi that works great using ASP on
IIS.

Is it possible to use ActiveX DLL files within PHP like in ASP? but on an
Apache webserver that is running on a Windows machine?

In ASP it works like this:

<% Set DelphiAxObj = Server.CreateObject("TestX.TestX")
DelphiAxObj.heading = "A test string"
Response.Write DelphiAxObj.heading
%>

Ultimatly I need the ActiveX object to perform some windows api functions
and then send the result as HTML back to the user so I cant use a Linux
machine but I prefer PHP and MySQL and running PHP in IIS can be
troublesome.

Maybe i'm just complicating the matter and should just stick with asp and
iis and get MySQL running in Windows.

Thanks for any help
Geoff

[Treefrog]

Geoff Coope wrote:

Is it possible to use ActiveX DLL files within PHP like in ASP? but on an
Apache webserver that is running on a Windows machine?
I think not.
Maybe i'm just complicating the matter and should just stick with asp and
iis and get MySQL running in Windows.

I would, or rewrite you DLL with COM support and use it in PHP.

P.S. Do people still use ASP for production code?

[Chung Leong]

Geoff Coope wrote:

Hi all

I created an ASP ActiveX DLL file in Delphi that works great using ASP on
IIS.

Is it possible to use ActiveX DLL files within PHP like in ASP? but on an
Apache webserver that is running on a Windows machine?

In ASP it works like this:

<% Set DelphiAxObj = Server.CreateObject("TestX.TestX")
DelphiAxObj.heading = "A test string"
Response.Write DelphiAxObj.heading
%>

Ultimatly I need the ActiveX object to perform some windows api functions
and then send the result as HTML back to the user so I cant use a Linux
machine but I prefer PHP and MySQL and running PHP in IIS can be
troublesome.

Maybe i'm just complicating the matter and should just stick with asp and
iis and get MySQL running in Windows.

Thanks for any help
Geoff

It's possible but not recommended. COM support is somewhat shaky on
PHP. You have to try it to see though. Support on PHP5 is better than
PHP4 I believe.

To load a control, you would do something like:

$DelphiAxObj = new COM("TestX.TestX");

Check the manual for more info:
http://us3.php.net/manual/en/ref.com.php.

[Csaba Gabor]

Chung Leong wrote:

Geoff Coope wrote: ....

Ultimatly I need the ActiveX object to perform some windows api functions
and then send the result as HTML back to the user so I cant use a Linux
machine but I prefer PHP and MySQL and running PHP in IIS can be
troublesome.

.... It's possible but not recommended. COM support is somewhat shaky on
PHP. You have to try it to see though. Support on PHP5 is better than
PHP4 I believe.

To load a control, you would do something like:

$DelphiAxObj = new COM("TestX.TestX");

Check the manual for more info:
http://us3.php.net/manual/en/ref.com.php.

By whom is it "not recommended", and are there any concrete reasons
given beyond bad mojo? OK, I know wez (author of the PHPs COM code)
says
"com_event_sink() and com_message_pump() are intended to be used in
standalone, single-threaded processes."
but for all that, it tends to work fairly well for me in PHP5. For
vanilla COM objects, I wouldn't expect a problem.

Where you do have issues running under apache is with security.
Specifically, I mean some methods and events are locked down - in a few
instances overzealously. For example, an instance of IE started as a
COM object in PHP under Apache can be started up without issue, but
getting event notifications in that situation doesn't work. At the
same time, if your php code starts up an instance of IE by executing a
..vbs file, the IE there will be able to signal events to the vbscript
in the .vbs file just fine. How about them apples?

Csaba Gabor from Vienna