php extensions

I'm trying to create an extension to PHP to provide an access interface to the proprietary database server my company uses. However, I cannot seem to suceed even at the simplest module, the one provided by ext_skel. I run buildconf, configure and compile the module, however dl() won't load the resulting .o, libmodule.la saying the file format is invalid. If I manually link the object file to a shared library, dl() will tell me the library is invalid. So I'm stuck. If someone could help me that would be gratly appreciated. I'm using FreeBSD 4.3 and the (patched) PHP sources from the ports tree. Thanks. Cristovao Dalla Costa