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The PHP Extension and Application Repository, or PEAR, is a framework and distribution system for PHP code components. PEAR project was founded in 1999 by Stig S. Bakken to promote reuse of code that performs common functions.
The goals of the project are:
- provide a structured library of code
- maintain a system for distributing the code and managing code packages
- promote a standard coding style
The PEAR project is community driven and is managed by the PEAR Group. Each PEAR code package is an independent project under the PEAR umbrella. It has its own development team, versioning control and documentation. A PEAR package can be either or both source code and binaries. Unlike the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN), after which PEAR was modeled, PEAR packages do not have implicit dependencies so that a package's placement in the PEAR package tree does not relate to code dependencies. Rather, PEAR packages must explicitly declare all dependencies on other PEAR packages.
The PEAR base classes contain code for simulating object-oriented destructors and consistent error handling. Packages exist for many basic PHP functions including authentication, caching, database access, encryption, confguration, HTML, web services and XML.
The PHP Extension Community Library (PECL) contains C extensions that can be compiled into PHP. PECL includes modules for XML parsing, access to additional databases, mail parsing, embedding Perl or Python in PHP scripts and for compiling PHP script. PECL spun off from the PEAR Project in 2003 and now operates independently of PEAR.
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