For instance, if I embed the following script into PHP code:

$alpha = 'beta=2&gamma=3';
parse_str($alpha);
echo '|',$beta,'|',$gamma,'|';

All I see is '|||' when I view the output. (I just checked this to make sure. All my other PHP code works fine.) I have tested this both in a web page from Peer Web Server(ISAPI) and at the command prompt running a stand-alone script through php.exe - with the same result.

I recently upgraded to NT service pack 6.0 - could that affect it? I am "sure" it used to work OK some weeks ago. I haven't made any changes to my php.ini file in this time. Of course, I have installed and uninstalled the odd package over this time (at least Interbase 6.0, and Windows Blinds).

BTW, I didn't compile PHP, I downloaded the Win32 binaries from www.Zend.com.