I don't quite understand: you want PHP to look for the ini file in the directory where the script is?

yes.. where else should the USER php.ini be searched?

Just behave like php4 or php5.0.3 :)

PHP4 doesn't behave this way and I doubt PHP5 will do it either, just because putting php.ini into scripts directory doesn't make any sense to me.
PHP looks for .ini in TWO directories: the directory where PHP binary is placed and the directory specified with --with-config-file-path option. Also you can use -c option when running PHP binary to specify ini file path. 

You are right, php4 and 5.0.3 don't seek inside 
the script dir directly. The Apache sets the current
directory to the scripts directory and php4 + 5.0.3 
try to open "./php-cgi.ini" which 5.1.2 does not 
try.

Pls see here for the difference:


bash-2.04# pwd
/home/benderircde/public_html/php5


bash-2.04# cd /home/benderircde/public_html/php5
bash-2.04# strace php5 /home/benderircde/public_html/php5/info.php 2>&1 | grep php5-cgi.ini
open("/usr/local/apache/conf//php5-cgi.ini", O_RDONLY) = 3
lstat64("/usr/local/apache/conf/php5-cgi.ini", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=25282, ...}) = 0
<tr><td class="e">Configuration File (php.ini) Path </td><td class="v">/usr/local/apache/conf/php5-cgi.ini </td></tr>


bash-2.04# strace php5.0.3 /home/benderircde/public_html/php5/info.php 2>&1 | grep php5-cgi.ini
open("./php5-cgi.ini", O_RDONLY)        = 3
lstat64("/home/benderircde/public_html/php5/php5-cgi.ini", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=339, ...}) = 0
<tr><td class="e">Configuration File (php.ini) Path </td><td class="v">/home/benderircde/public_html/php5/php5-cgi.ini </td></tr>

bash-2.04# strace php /home/benderircde/public_html/php5/info.php 2>&1 | grep php-cgi.ini
open("./php-cgi.ini", O_RDONLY)         = 3
lstat64("/home/benderircde/public_html/php5/php-cgi.ini", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=339, ...}) = 0
<tr><td class="e">Configuration File (php.ini) Path </td><td class="v">/home/benderircde/public_html/php5/php-cgi.ini </td></tr>
bash-2.04#

reconsider it.

Works fine here:

mike@honeybadger:~/development/testimonials$ strace -o t ../php/5.1/sapi/cgi/php -i >/dev/null; grep "\.ini" t; rm t;
lstat64("/home/mike/development/php/5.1/sapi/cgi/php-cgi.ini", 0xbfedf5fc) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/home/mike/development/php/5.1/sapi/cgi/php-cgi.ini", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
lstat64("/home/mike/development/testimonials/php-cgi.ini", 0xbfedf5fc) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/home/mike/development/testimonials/php-cgi.ini", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
lstat64("/home/mike/development/php/5.1/sapi/cgi/php.ini", {st_mode=S_IFLNK|0777, st_size=13, ...}) = 0
readlink("/home/mike/development/php/5.1/sapi/cgi/php.ini", "../../php.ini", 4096) = 13
lstat64("/home/mike/development/php/5.1/php.ini", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=103, ...}) = 0
open("/home/mike/development/php/5.1/php.ini", O_RDONLY) = 3
lstat64("/home/mike/development/php/5.1/sapi/cgi/php.ini", {st_mode=S_IFLNK|0777, st_size=13, ...}) = 0
readlink("/home/mike/development/php/5.1/sapi/cgi/php.ini", "../../php.ini", 4096) = 13
lstat64("/home/mike/development/php/5.1/php.ini", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=103, ...}) = 0
write(1, "Configuration File (php.ini) Pat"..., 33) = 33

RESOLVED would be a good status :)

The error is simple to remove :

Add a "./:" before your configure --with-config-file-path
option, like i.e. --with-config-file-path=./:/usr/local/apache/conf

Problem solved. 

If you have stated that matter in the changelogs,
we didn't see it , but if not, you should mention it.

5.0.3 :
 	 './configure' '--with-pdflib=/home/power-netz/PDFlib-Lite-6.0.0p1/bind/pdflib/c/' '--with-mysql=/usr' '--with-imap=/usr/src/imap-2002d' '--with-openssl' '--with-jpeg-dir' '--with-zlib-dir' '--enable-ftp' '--with-gd' '--with-freetype-dir=/usr/include/freetype2' '--with-png-dir' '--with-session' '--enable-trans-sid' '--enable-gd-native-ttf' '--with-ming' '--with-curl' '--with-mcrypt' '--with-mysql-sock=/opt/root/tmp/mysql.sock' '--with-imap-ssl=/usr/src/imap-2002d' '--with-config-file-path=/usr/local/apache/conf/' '--with-idn' '--enable-force-cgi-redirect'

5.1.2 :

 	 './configure' '--with-pdflib=/home/power-netz/PDFlib-Lite-6.0.0p1/bind/pdflib/c/' '--with-mysql=/usr' '--with-imap=/usr/src/imap-2002d' '--with-openssl' '--with-jpeg-dir' '--with-zlib-dir' '--enable-ftp' '--with-gd' '--with-freetype-dir=/usr/include/freetype2' '--with-png-dir' '--with-session' '--enable-trans-sid' '--enable-gd-native-ttf' '--with-ming' '--with-curl' '--with-mcrypt' '--with-mysql-sock=/opt/root/tmp/mysql.sock' '--with-imap-ssl=/usr/src/imap-2002d' '--with-config-file-path=.:/usr/local/apache/conf/' '--with-idn' '--enable-force-cgi-redirect'

No bug -> no change -> Bogus.