Using PHP With MongoDB on Windows 8

In this post, we'll discuss getting PHP to run with MongoDB on Windows. I'll assume you already have MongoDB up and running. You might need a different copy of PHP, though.

 I made a folder called "PHP_5_4_12" first. Then, I went to http://windows.php.net/download/ and downloaded the "VC9 x86 Thread Safe" Zip file. I unpacked the Zip to C:\PHP_5_4_12. Then I went to the IIS manager through Control Panel. I went to Handler Mappings, and clicked on "Add Module Mapping". I entered "*.php" (minus the quotes) for the Request path, selected FastCgiModule, and named it PHP. For the executable, I entered "C:\PHP_5_4_12\php-cgi.exe" minus the quotes.  For the request restrictions, I selected "File Or Folder". I agreed to have IIS add this handler to the FastCGI list.

The next step was getting the MongoDB PHP drivers. I downloaded the latest version (it was 1.3.2 RC 1when I did this) from https://github.com/mongodb/mongo-php-driver/downloads . I then unpacked the Zip and copied the php_mongo-1.3.2RC1-5.4-vc9.dll DLL to C:\PHP_5_4_12\ext. Also, I right-clicked on the new copy, went into Properties and unblocked the file. 

The next step was configuring PHP. I went into the php.ini (copy one of the candidate INIs and rename the copy if you don't have a file with that specific name). I removed the semicolon from the

 ;extension_dir = "ext"

entry. That tells PHP where to find extension DLLs. The last change I had to make was go into the extension list and add the following to the bottom of the list prior to the MIBS list:

extension=php_mongo-1.3.2RC1-5.4-vc9.dll

Use the exact name of the DLL file you copied into the "ext" directory. I saved my changes.

In my case, I have a MongoDB database called "mvcmongo3" with a collection of names called "names". To test my work, I created a script file called "mongo2.php", which consisted of:


<?php

class SearchName {
  public $firstName;
  public $lastName;

  public function SearchName($first, $last)
  {
    $this->firstName = $first;
    $this->lastName = $last;
  }
}

class Name extends SearchName {
  public $_id;
#  public $firstName;
#  public $lastName;

  public function Name($obj)
  {
    $this->_id = $obj['_id'];
    $this->firstName = $obj['firstName'];
    $this->lastName = $obj['lastName'];
  }


}



$m = new MongoClient();
$db = $m->mvcmongo3;
$col = $db->names;
$cursor = $col->find();

foreach ($cursor as $obj) {
  $nameObject = new Name($obj);  
  print "$nameObject->_id : $nameObject->firstName $nameObject->lastName <br />";  
}

echo "Found " . $cursor->count() . " names.<br />";

$name = new SearchName("Ross", "Albertson");
print "Found " . $col->find($name)->count() . " matches <br />";

$cursor2 = $col->find($name);

foreach ($cursor2 as $obj) {
  $nameObject = new Name($obj);  
  print "$nameObject->_id : $nameObject->firstName $nameObject->lastName <br />";  
}

?>

Running the script in C:\inetpub\wwwroot, I got the following results....

513772c6e037b778819b159c : Ross Albertson
51377310e037b778819b159d : David Albertson
5137732fe037b778819b159e : Ross Babcock Jr.
513774d2e037b778819b159f : David Acker
51377568e037b778819b15a0 : David Johnson
513777e4e037b778819b15a1 : Sara Werckle
Found 6 names.
Found 1 matches 513772c6e037b778819b159c : Ross Albertson 

$col->find() retrieved a list of all of the names; $col->find($name) retrieved all the documents with a first name of "Ross" and a last name of "Albertson". The funny-looking string are the document IDs. I think $col->save($name); will store the name into that MongoDB collection, given my naming convention. Given that, try experimenting with php_mongo.