README.WIN32-BUILD-SYSTEM

I'm new to PHP development, so please have some patience with me here. Once I get the "AH HA", I will be eagerly contributing. With my PHP-5.2.5 source code installation, I was able to finally able to use the WIN32\*.DSP projects, with some changes as noted in a previous post, to create a new PHP5TS.DLL file. Comparing the two image sizes: 4,796,472 php5ts.dll (official 5.2.5 release) 4,763,648 php5ts.dll (new release_ts_inline) With almost the same size gave me the initial "good news" impression that I was doing it right. Replacing the new PHP5DLL.DLL in my official WIn32 binary PHP525 installation, I tested it against many of my PHP extension scripts and they all seems to work. However in looking at the exported functions from the official release binary and new this build, there is drastic different. A diff of the DUMPBIN.EXE /EXPORTS shows items that were not included and others included (see attached dumpbin-diff-php5ts.txt). If someone can give me the skinny on the items in the diff file, what are do they reflect, why there is a different, I can begin to get a better handle of this PHP development environment. This got me to think that I probably do not have a good handle on this "CONFIGURE.JS" stuff or that the 2003 version of this README.WIN32-BUILD-SYSTEM file is simply out of date given that there are *.DSP project files available. I started fresh again with new copy of PHP-5.2.6 and tried to follow this but I am getting an compiler error with LIBXML/PARSER.H. I can probably figure this out, but I do have one question. In this README file, it says in section 1: You also need: - bindlib_w32 [http://www.php.net/extra/bindlib_w32.zip] - win32build [http://www.php.net/extra/win32build.zip] but it doesn't say where to unzip this. I presume it would be off the PHP-5.2.6\ folder, but under what folder names expected by the PHP source code? I would love to clean this all up for PHP Windows developers so if someone can give me the "AH HA" behind all this, that would be great. Once I am able to reproduce the exact official release PHP5TS.DLL image for Win32, then I know I am on the right track. TIA -- Hector Santos