configuration question

I've just installed php4 (upgrade from php 3) and I'm confronted and confounded by my own ignorance. Everything is running well (php4pl2, apache 1.3.12, mysql, on osx (bsd) box). But mail() doesn't work and I'm fairly sure its because I need to modify my configuration of php to tell it where sendmail is. At the moment, there is no php.ini file at the location phpinfo() tells me it looks for one, and I have the stock distribution php.ini-dist and php.ini-optimized files to play with. My questions are these: are the values that php uses if it doesn't find an .ini file set from some external file or are they internal defaults? Since there is no file where PHP says it looks for one, the values that it uses and reports in phpinfo() - where do they come from? Another way to ask this same question would be if I edited php-ini-dist, rename it php.ini, and put it where php expects it, restarted, then removed it and restarted apache again, would php revert to the default settings? Or does it write the last settings it found to another location and continue to use them or some other such scheme? I just don't wantto get into a situation where (since several sites are dependent on php running on the server here) I screw something up - and since there is apparently no configuration file to backup, I don't know how to guarantee that I can get back to Kansas if I need to... Obviously, it's not the setting for sendmail I'm concerned about - its the rest of the the ini file. Or should I just delete all the other stuff and just add only the directives I need for sendmail, and rely on defaults? Or does php abandon these mysterious default values if it finds a php.ini file? As you can tell, I have hundreds of years experience with this stuff, and this question is just a test to see if you knew it... I'm on the digest, so if you have any questions and are kind enough to answer this, contact me at omnivore@sympatico.ca TIA dan ----------------------------------------------------- omnivore: omnivore@sympatico.ca Networked and Desktop interactive technologies tel: +1 416 603 3309 Build surveys online with surveys123: http://www.surveys123.com Your Online Science & Astronomy Superstore: http://www.e-sci.com