I want to call Java from PHP 5.2, running either on a webserver or from a command line script.
From PHP 4, this seems to be simple, and just involves installing the PECL Java extension.
Example code from the PHP 4 extension:
<?php
// get instance of Java class java.lang.System in PHP
$system = new Java('java.lang.System');
// demonstrate property access
echo 'Java version=' . $system->getProperty('java.version') . '<br />';
?>
However, this extension doesn't exist on PHP 5.
What is the closest alternative for PHP 5?
edit:
Really I'm looking for an interface similar to either a C PHP extension or to that provided by the PHP 4 Java extension. The Java program is fairly small and only needs to retain a small amount of state between calls and doesn't need to run asynchronously. The PHP script would only be running a small number of instances simultaneously.
This would also need to be deployed to multiple machines (running Ubuntu 9.x and Debian Lenny), so it should be simple to install.
This project seems to be a good bet: http://php-java-bridge.sourceforge.net/pjb/