php extensions

Dear All, I'm new in PHP development, so , could anyone tell me is there in PHP something like xSUB in perl or native methods in JAVA ( interface to external native C/C++ libraries). I have not found something like this so far, and considering to write php extension my self. Does any one know , where can I find docs & samples on that subject, some "HelloWorld" and so on ? Thanks. -- Viktors Krebss, lopik@delfi.lv DELFI Interactive, http://www.delfi.lv/ tel: +371-7777748, mob: +371-9243923, fax: +371-7777701