Re: [Nolug] Migrating ASP pages to Apache [Helmut, check this out]

Mischa Krilov <subs@krilov.com> wrote ..
> Petri Laihonen wrote:
>
> > I've been using Chilisoft for running asp pages in my linux box for
> > several years. However since I started learning PHP, I've converted
> > most of my asp scripts to PHP.
> >
> > For ASP -> PHP beginners I recommend php2asp (GUI available) I've
> > also realized that PHP <-> MSSQL scripting is much easier than ASP
> > <->MSSQL.
>
> Obligatory link:
> http://asp2php.naken.cc/
>
> Thanks for the info, Petri- can you tell us more about your journey from
> ASP & MSSQL to PHP? We also didn't know if it made more sense to have
> wither PHP talking to MSSQL or ASP talking to MySQL as a middle step. Do
> you have any insight to share?
>
> As James said, there was no original post to the list- I figured I'd
> throw the original link onto the list and see if there were any other
> NOLUGgers with extra information that would help shed some light.
>
> Mischa.

I've been learning PHP for about a year now (took me previous year to learn ASP), and I've come to the conclusion that PHP is the choice in both platforms.

Our main content platform was transferred from Win-MSSQL -> PHP-MySQL about a year ago (Not by me though) and when I'm ready to dump windows completely, the server costs alone would drop about $1000 month. (Servers are leased from hosting provider)

Since the transfer, I have basically converted all but one of my previously ASP pages to PHP and I'm quite happy for the result. The site I mentioned in my previous post, is currently running off of ASP-MSSQL on one server and PHP-MySQL on one server. This hybrid configuration is the most extensive setup for the transition. The most difficult part was to securely transfer user information back and forth "behind the scene" while still give the impression from the browser viewpoint that everything is running on one site.

PHP-MSSQL: I've learned that with PHP one can execute MSSQL stored procedures and queries directly from one line of code very efficiently where as with ASP it would take several lines of code. (by lines I mean about normal page width, not extra long single liners.)

In order to nicely talk from Linux box using PHP to windows box MSSQL, one needs freetds (http://www.freetds.org/) package installed on Linux and PHP compiled '--with-mssql=/usr/local/freetds'. In freetds.conf I've specified
# WIN Server
[mssql]
        host = server177 #in hosts file, server177 has an IP address
        port = 1433
        tds version = 7.0

Then just use PHP function mssql_connect and server address would be "mssql" from the above config. (naturally many other mssql_ functions in php needs to be used.)

In short: My recommendation would be to go with PHP talking to MSSQL. Even within the windows server it would be my choice.

I hope this helps a little bit.

Petri

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Received on 02/08/04