Installing/Configuring
PHP Manual

Runtime Configuration

The behaviour of these functions is affected by settings in php.ini.

PHP Options/Inf Configuration Options
Name Default Changeable Changelog
assert.active "1" PHP_INI_ALL  
assert.bail "0" PHP_INI_ALL  
assert.warning "1" PHP_INI_ALL  
assert.callback NULL PHP_INI_ALL  
assert.quiet_eval "0" PHP_INI_ALL  
enable_dl "1" PHP_INI_SYSTEM Removed in PHP 6.0.0.
max_execution_time "30" PHP_INI_ALL  
max_input_time "-1" PHP_INI_PERDIR Available since PHP 4.3.0.
max_input_nesting_level "64" PHP_INI_PERDIR Available since PHP 4.4.8. Removed in PHP 5.0.0.
magic_quotes_gpc "1" PHP_INI_PERDIR PHP_INI_ALL in PHP <= 4.2.3. Removed in PHP 6.0.0.
magic_quotes_runtime "0" PHP_INI_ALL Removed in PHP 6.0.0.
For further details and definitions of the PHP_INI_* constants, see the php.ini directives.

Here's a short explanation of the configuration directives.

assert.active boolean

Enable assert() evaluation.

assert.bail boolean

Terminate script execution on failed assertions.

assert.warning boolean

Issue a PHP warning for each failed assertion.

assert.callback string

user function to call on failed assertions

assert.quiet_eval boolean

Use the current setting of error_reporting() during assertion expression evaluation. If enabled, no errors are shown (implicit error_reporting(0)) while evaluation. If disabled, errors are shown according to the settings of error_reporting()

enable_dl boolean

This directive is really only useful in the Apache module version of PHP. You can turn dynamic loading of PHP extensions with dl() on and off per virtual server or per directory.

The main reason for turning dynamic loading off is security. With dynamic loading, it's possible to ignore all open_basedir restrictions. The default is to allow dynamic loading, except when using safe mode. In safe mode, it's always impossible to use dl().

max_execution_time integer

This sets the maximum time in seconds a script is allowed to run before it is terminated by the parser. This helps prevent poorly written scripts from tying up the server. The default setting is 30. When running PHP from the command line the default setting is 0.

The maximum execution time is not affected by system calls, stream operations etc. Please see the set_time_limit() function for more details.

You can not change this setting with ini_set() when running in safe mode. The only workaround is to turn off safe mode or by changing the time limit in the php.ini.

Your web server can have other timeout configurations that may also interrupt PHP execution. Apache has a Timeout directive and IIS has a CGI timeout function. Both default to 300 seconds. See your web server documentation for specific details.

max_input_time integer

This sets the maximum time in seconds a script is allowed to parse input data, like POST, GET and file uploads.

max_input_nesting_level integer

Sets the max nesting depth of input variables (i.e. $_GET, $_POST..)

magic_quotes_gpc boolean
Warning

This feature has been DEPRECATED and REMOVED as of PHP 6.0.0. Relying on this feature is highly discouraged.

Sets the magic_quotes state for GPC (Get/Post/Cookie) operations. When magic_quotes are on, all ' (single-quote), " (double quote), \ (backslash) and NUL's are escaped with a backslash automatically.

Note: In PHP 4, also $_ENV variables are escaped.

Note: If the magic_quotes_sybase directive is also ON it will completely override magic_quotes_gpc. Having both directives enabled means only single quotes are escaped as ''. Double quotes, backslashes and NUL's will remain untouched and unescaped.

See also get_magic_quotes_gpc()

magic_quotes_runtime boolean
Warning

This feature has been DEPRECATED and REMOVED as of PHP 6.0.0. Relying on this feature is highly discouraged.

If magic_quotes_runtime is enabled, most functions that return data from any sort of external source including databases and text files will have quotes escaped with a backslash. If magic_quotes_sybase is also on, a single-quote is escaped with a single-quote instead of a backslash.


Installing/Configuring
PHP Manual