pecl http.so not working on maverick with PHP Version 5.4.17

Question

I installed pecl extensions on my mac/maverick running PHP Version 5.4.17. phpinfo says http has been loaded and so for raphf and propro. I'm able to run sample using propro, but I'm not able to use the sample code for HttpRequest class.

extension_loaded("http") -> true
var_dump(class_exists('HttpRequest', false)); -> false

writing a sample line such

$r = new HttpRequest('http://www.google.com/', HttpRequest::METH_GET);

does not crash, but nothing happened after that. No more printing of any kind, nothing at all.

I also installed other pecl extensions such oauth.so and they all work w/ no problem, just http.so does not

I'm lost...

Answer 1

Chances are that you don't actually want the http extension. It's much more complicated and annoying to use than the name would suggest - there are good reasons why it's not part of the PHP standard distribution!

Instead, use the curl extension to run HTTP requests.