In my case (NetBSD 1.6*) the system function 'bind_textdomain_codeset' is not yet implemented (== returns NULL always), but present. This causes a segmentation fault in every case php4's pendent function is called.

Fix: Something like the following would generally prevent running in this NULL pointer trouble:

--- gettext.c~  Sat Dec 15 15:22:59 2001
+++ gettext.c   Tue Aug  6 11:59:25 2002
@@ -291,7 +291,9 @@
                
                retval = bind_textdomain_codeset(Z_STRVAL_PP(domain), Z_STRVAL_PP(codeset));
 
-               RETURN_STRING(retval, 1);
+               if (retval) {
+                       RETURN_STRING(retval, 1);
+               }
        }       
 }
 /* }}} */