Please try using this CVS snapshot:

  http://snaps.php.net/php4-STABLE-latest.tar.gz
 
For Windows:
 
  http://snaps.php.net/win32/php4-win32-STABLE-latest.zip

The latest snapshot should fix the crypt issue..
Try this configure line:

./configure --disable-all --with-mysql --with-pcre-regex --with-apxs2=/usr/local/apache2/bin/apxs

(--disable-all disables every 'by-default' extension)

I tried with the latest stable snapshot and with the ./configure options as per suggestion.

By the way, I confirm you that the issues related to crypt and termcap libraries in hp-ux environment are apparently solved with this latest stable. The overall generation was definitely smoother than my previous one.

Everything ran successfully, the new libphp4.so was installed in /usr/local/apache2/modules, the httpd.conf was updated by make install (this did not happen previously). 

Unfortunately, when I ran 

apachectl configtest 

I was still returned with the same error message.
Any hint?

Cheers
Germano Gasparini

Add --enable-debug to your PHP configure line
and try checking if it's crashing with gdb.

(what MPM is used for Apache2 ?)

MPM used for Apache2: prefork

Operations I did:
cd to PHP latest stable directory
make clean
rm config.cache
./configure with all options as before plus --enable-debug
make  - succeeded, with more compiler warnings about unused declarations
make install  - succeeded
cd /usr/local/apache2/bin
./apachectl configtest

Same error message again.

gdb is not yet installed on my system, I'm currently getting the depot from HP-UX Porting Centre.

Results of analysis with gdb:

I used gdb to debug the "httpd -t" program, so to reproduce the problem without having to affect the operation of Apache.

The error condition is detected by the function:

errmsg = ap_build_config(&parms, p, ptemp, conftree);

located at line 1563 in Apache's source file config.c

Could this help?

Cheers
Germano Gasparini

Simple 'bt full' output would have been enough.. :)
Anyway, does it do the same if you run it with 'httpd -X' ?
(provide that backtrace, and just the bt output)
 
(gdb) run -X
<crash?>
(gdb) bt full

(and to be absolutely sure this is php bug, I assume that apache works fine without PHP in httpd.conf? :)

Just noticed there's some HPUX related note in the httpd.conf about not running it as 'nobody'..I guess you know this too?

Can you try adding this to your configure line:

--enable-libgcc

I tried but yet nope.

I got this additional message during "make", at linking phase:

*** Warning: linker path does not have real file for library -lgcc.
*** I have the capability to make that library automatically link in when
*** you link to this library.  But I can only do this if you have a
*** shared version of the library, which you do not appear to have
*** because I did check the linker path looking for a file starting
*** with libgcc and none of the candidates passed a file format test
*** using a file magic. Last file checked: /usr/local/lib/gcc-lib/hppa2.0n-hp-hpux11.00/3.2/libgcc.a

*** Warning: libtool could not satisfy all declared inter-library
*** dependencies of module libphp4.  Therefore, libtool will create
*** a static module, that should work as long as the dlopening
*** application is linked with the -dlopen flag.

Additionally, "make install" returned the following message (I added the #### to highlight a possible critical point):
Installing PHP CLI binary:        /usr/local/bin/
Installing PHP CLI man page:      /usr/local/man/man1/
Installing PHP SAPI module
/usr/local/apache2/build/instdso.sh SH_LIBTOOL='/usr/local/apache2/build/libtool' libphp4.la /usr/local/apache2/modules
/usr/local/apache2/build/libtool --mode=install cp libphp4.la /usr/local/apache2/modules/
cp .libs/libphp4.lai /usr/local/apache2/modules/libphp4.la
cp .libs/libphp4.a /usr/local/apache2/modules/libphp4.a
ranlib /usr/local/apache2/modules/libphp4.a
chmod 644 /usr/local/apache2/modules/libphp4.a
libtool: install: warning: remember to run `libtool --finish /opt/php4-STABLE-200302190830/libs'
#### Warning!  dlname not found in 
 /usr/local/apache2/modules/libphp4.la.
#### Assuming installing a .so rather than a libtool archive.
chmod 755 /usr/local/apache2/modules/libphp4.so
[activating module `php4' in /usr/local/apache2/conf/httpd.conf]
Installing shared extensions: 
[ ... I skip this, everything regular ... ]

Could you try this with using Apache 1.3.27 instead?
(I'd like to be sure it's stricly apache2 related)

And another thing to try: GCC 2.95.3
(the latest versions of anything aren't always the best ones :)

I'm afraid that compiling with gcc 2.9.x is a little bit problematic for me. My HP-UX workstation came with gcc 3.x already installed and I'm a little bit concerned in installing an older version - just to avoid possible regression problems.

Howeverm these are the result of the test with Apache 1.3.27

Apache built with:
configure --prefix=/usr/local/apachetest \
          --enable-module=so

PHP configured with:
configure --disable-all \
          --with-mysql \
          --with-pcre-regex \
          --with-apxs=/usr/local/apachetest/bin/apxs \
          --enable-debug
I had to manually perform the following replacements inside configure:
-lcrypt replaced with -lc
-ltermcap replaced with -lcurses
otherwise the build fails (looks like the lcrypt problem is fixed with Apache2 but not with Apache - very strange).

PHP make and make install succeeded.

Result of /usr/local/apachetest/bin/httpd -X:
/usr/lib/dld.sl: Unresolved symbol: __umoddi3 (code)  from /usr/local/apachetest/libexec/libphp4.so
Syntax error on line 236 of /usr/local/apachetest/conf/httpd.conf:
Cannot load /usr/local/apachetest/libexec/libphp4.so into server: Unresolved external

I tried again rebulding PHP adding also --enable-libgcc to the configure command line (make clean and rm config.cache executed before re-running configure).

This time make install failed and I noticed that libs/libphp4.sl was not generated.
Here is the output of make install:
Installing PHP CLI binary:        /usr/local/bin/
Installing PHP CLI man page:      /usr/local/man/man1/
Installing PHP SAPI module
apxs:Error: file libs/libphp4.sl is not a DSO
*** Error exit code 1

Stop.

I have no idea what causes this..must be yet another libtool issue I guess. Can't help you with this on any further, sorry about that. Hopefully someone who knows HPUX inside out pops up sometime and could fix these issues..

(Try asking the HP support? :)

See bug #23758 for a workaround. And follow that bug report
for possible solution too, there's no need to have many reports about this.