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Zend Technologies, The PHP Company,  release the latest Zend Core (ZC) for PHP enthusiast and want to use the power of the latest PHP Engine and the some new library provided by Zend. This engine still free to download here.

The extension collection in ZC 2.5 is more mature and there is additional extension, this is the list of new extension that is added from previous version of Zend Core :

1. com_dotnet : Component Object Model - An object orientated layer (and associated services) on top of DCE RPC (an open standard) which defines a common calling convention that enables code written in any language to call and interoperate with code written in any other language. This extension is only available in Windows Version.
2. gettext : The gettext functions implement an NLS (Native Language Support) API which can be used to internationalize your PHP applications.
3. ibm_db2 : IBM DB2 Database Access - These functions enable you to access the IBM DB2 Universal Database, IBM Cloudscape, and Apache Derby databases using the DB2 Call Level Interface (DB2 CLI).
4. JSON  : Implements the JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) data-interchange format.
5. mssql (Windows version) : MS SQL (FreeTDS) - Allows you to access MS SQL Server database. Note: FreeTDS libraries must be installed in order
   for this extension to function
6. oci8 - Oracle : Oracle Call Interface - Supports binding of PHP variables to Oracle placeholders, has full LOB, FILE and ROWID support, and allows you to use user-supplied define variables. Allows access to Oracle7, 8 and 9 databases. Note: This can only be enabled of the Oracle Instant Client is installed.
7. odbc (Windows version) : DB2 Unified ODBC - In addition to normal ODBC support, the Unified ODBC functions in PHP allow you to access several databases that have borrowed the semantics of the ODBC API to implement their own API.
8. pdo_ibm : PDO_IBM is a driver that implements the PHP Data Objects (PDO) interface to enable access from PHP to IBM databases.
9. xmlrpc (Windows version) : XML-RPC - These functions can be used to write XML-RPC servers and clients.  Warning: This extension is experimental. The behaviour of this extension may change without notice in a future release of PHP. Use this extension at your own risk.
10. xmlwriter (Unix/Linux/Mac version only) :XML Writer - Represents a writer that provides a non-cached, forward-only means of generating streams or files containing XML data. This extension can be used in an object oriented style or a procedural one. Every method documented describes the alternative procedural call.

For the complete comparison between the latest release and previous Zend Core, this is the list of changes between previous Zend Core 2.0 and Zend Core 2.5:

Functionality:
- PHP Version includes PHP 5.2.4
- PHP Extensions includes the most updated PHP extensions and libraries
- Includes a bundled copy of the most updated Zend Optimizer with version 3.3.1
- Includes a bundled copy of the most updated Zend Debugger version 5.2.10
- Zend Core 2.5 for Windows is compiled with Microsoft Studio 2005
- A custom invalid parameter handler using _set_invalid_parameter_handler()
Function to support Visual Studio 2005 compilation.

In Documentation section, there is several enhancements and additional sections.
This version also include Bug fixes for All known critical and major bugs.

ZEND CORE for ORACLE
Communication to Oracle database from PHP can be done by several way like using the Oracle Install Client or with the Zend Core for Oracle. This article will explain how to establish between PHP and Zend Core for Oracle based on my experience. Continue reading »