Please check that you have properly setup the Oracle environment variables as mentioned here:

http://www.php.net/manual/en/ref.oci8.php

(check the user comments about setting it up!)

I tried several ways to set the environnement variables up :
  1. within /etc/profile (export VARIABLE=value)
  2. within apache start script (/usr/local/apache2/bin/apachectl)
  3. within the PHP script using PHP's putenv function

All these ones are set :
  ORACLE_HOME
  ORACLE_SID
  LD_PRELOAD
  LD_LIBRARY_PATH
  NLS_LANG
  ORA_NLS33

Still crashing...

This is pure guess, but in file ext/oci8/oci8.c try changing the number 2 on line 2180 to 0 (zero) and recompile PHP.

Patch here:

Index: oci8.c
===================================================================
RCS file: /repository/php-src/ext/oci8/oci8.c,v
retrieving revision 1.183.2.16
diff -u -r1.183.2.16 oci8.c
--- oci8.c      3 Nov 2004 13:35:56 -0000       1.183.2.16
+++ oci8.c      13 Dec 2004 23:02:12 -0000
@@ -2177,7 +2177,7 @@
 
                /* Safe, charsetid is initialized to 0 */
                CALL_OCI(OCINlsEnvironmentVariableGet(&charsetid, 
-                               2, 
+                               0, 
                                OCI_NLS_CHARSET_ID, 
                                0,
                                &rsize));

I've just tried... still segmfaulting !

Tried other PHP compilation options but it's still the same !
./configure --with-apxs2=/usr/local/apache2/bin/apxs --with-mysql --with-zlib-dir=/usr/local --enable-force-cgi-redirect --disable-cgi --with-oci8=/home/oracle/OraHome1 --enable-sigchild --with-xml
I can't get it to work !

Will a Oracle 10g client will work ?

Isn't that MPM related ?

It works fine on a number of OSes, Web-servers etc.
And I still can't see how can I reproduce your problem, as it works perfect for me.
Try it with *officially* supported Apache version (as Apache2 is officially NOT recommended), try to run the same code using CLI version.

And, please, give me your environment variables values and other additional info, so I'll be able to debug it.

PHP 4.3.10RC2
Oracle 9 database
Oracle 9.2.0.1 client

Everything works fine using command line : php myscript.php gives me expected results

export ORACLE_SID="ORACLE9"
export ORACLE_HOME="/home/oracle/OraHome1"
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="/home/oracle/OraHome1/lib"
export TNS_ADMIN="/home/oracle/OraHome1/network/admin/tnsnames.ora"
export NLS_LANG="English_America.WE8ISO8859P1"

here is the script :
<?php
include "queries/fonctionsDb.php";

$username = "sirenet";
$passwd = "sirenet";
$host = "172.16.0.7";
$port = "1521";
$service = "ORACLE9";

//$db="(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS_LIST=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=$host)(PORT=$port)))(CONNECT_DATA=(SERVICE_NAME=$service)))";
$db="SIRENET";
$conn = connection();
if (!$conn) {
   echo "Connection failed";
   echo "Error Message: [" . OCIError($conn) . "]";
   exit;
} else {
        echo "Connected!"."\n";

        $parse=OCIParse($conn,"select nom from chevaux");
        OCIExecute($parse,OCI_DEFAULT);
        echo "\nRecuperation de donnees\n";

        $nrows = ocifetchstatement($parse, $rs, 0, 100,OCI_NUM);
                                $resultTab = "";
                                $numCol = 0;
                                for ( $iRow = 0; $iRow < $nrows; $iRow++ ) {
                                        reset($rs);
                                        while ( $column = each($rs) ) {
                                                 $data = $column['value'];
                                                 $resultTab[$iRow][$numCol] = $data[$iRow];
                                                echo $iRow.'|'.$numCol.'|'.$resultTab[$iRow][$numCol];
                                                $numCol++;
                                        }
                                        $numCol = 0;
                                }
        OCIFreeStatement($parse);
deconnection($conn);
}
?>

Wooops, I forgot the interesting part of the included file fonctionsDb.php :

<?php 
...
function connection(){
        global $errorCode,$test;

        $host = "172.16.0.7";
        $port = "1521";
        $service = "ORACLE9";
        $user = "sirenet";
        $pwd = "sirenet";
        $db="(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS_LIST=
            (ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)
              (HOST=$host)(PORT=$port)
            )
          )
           (CONNECT_DATA=(SERVICE_NAME=$service))
     )";

        if ($test==1){
                $conn = ocilogon($user,$pwd,$db);
        } else {
                $conn = @ocilogon($user,$pwd,$db);
        }
        if ($conn==""){
                $errorCode = 2;
        }
        return $conn;
}

function deconnection($conn){
        ocilogoff($conn);
}
...
?>

Are you able to try latest release from 5.0.x branch?

I'd prefer to stick with 4.x.x branch for compatibility.
It will be used on a production server and we can't loose time to check that everything is OK with PHP 5.x now.

Nobody has any idea how to solve this trouble ?

Give me some time for testing.
ATM I can tell only that Apache2 is not recommended for production environment and this will not be changed in the nearest future. At least, you should use prefork if you have to stick with Apache2.

I bet it's still the same issue as always: missing environment variable definitions for webserver. (as it works fine with CLI..)

Well, I found what was wrong !
I must run apache with user oracle and group oinstall (oracle has been installed with oracle user in oinstall group)

Now everything is OK, thanks for your replies ;-)

It can't be the right solution, cause apache can run under apache, httpd, whatever user and use php oci libs. have you compiled/recompiled your apache and/or php? i ask because i encounter the same problem if the oracle libs used for compilations process differ from those in runtime environment (it can be, but must not)

cheers,
-michael

>It can't be the right solution, cause apache can run under apache.
Right and to do that you need to set all those environment vars, that was set for oracle user.