Will analyze...

Please send me a copy of your php.ini file.
(zak@php.net)

Note from cynic@mail.cz:
"This bug seems to come and go. Relative paths worked for 
me with a two weeks old snapshot, and stopped working 
a week ago. It still doesn't work with php4-200008290145, 
unchanged php.ini-optimized. (Win32 Apache module with 
apache-1_3_20000825161201 snapshot.)"

More information from cynic@mail.cz

Hi. I found out relative paths work with 4.0.2 DSO on Apache 
1.3.12. And though I don't know the mechanism behind it, I 
found what has probably made the difference. 

As of 4 months ago win32 DSO PHP4 stopped building. The hack 
I was told to use was to delete everything but #include calls 
from <apache>/src/os/win32/readdir.h before building PHP. 
The original readdir.h from the 1.3.12 source looks like this: 


/*
 * Structures and types used to implement opendir/readdir/closedir
 * on Windows 95/NT.
 */
#include <io.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#ifndef API_EXPORT
# define API_EXPORT(type)    __declspec(dllexport) type __stdcall
#endif
/* struct dirent - same as Unix */
struct dirent {
    long d_ino;                    /* inode (always 1 in WIN32) */
    off_t d_off;                /* offset to this dirent */
    unsigned short d_reclen;    /* length of d_name */
    char d_name[_MAX_FNAME+1];    /* filename (null terminated) */
};
/* typedef DIR - not the same as Unix */
typedef struct {
    long handle;                /* _findfirst/_findnext handle */
    short offset;                /* offset into directory */
    short finished;             /* 1 if there are not more files */
    struct _finddata_t fileinfo;  /* from _findfirst/_findnext */
    char *dir;                  /* the dir we are reading */
    struct dirent dent;         /* the dirent to return */
} DIR;
/* Function prototypes */
API_EXPORT(DIR *) opendir(const char *);
API_EXPORT(struct dirent *) readdir(DIR *);
API_EXPORT(int) closedir(DIR *);


which I trimmed to this: 


/*
 * Structures and types used to implement opendir/readdir/closedir
 * on Windows 95/NT.
 */
#include <io.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <sys/types.h>


With this readdir.h, relative paths work in 4.0.2 DSO. 
In the post 1.3.12 snapshot I tried (apache-1_3_20000825161201), 
readdir.h changed: 


/*
 * Structures and types used to implement opendir/readdir/closedir
 * on Windows 95/NT.
 */
#ifndef APACHE_READDIR_H
#define APACHE_READDIR_H
#include <io.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#ifndef API_EXPORT
# define API_EXPORT(type)    __declspec(dllexport) type __stdcall
#endif
/* struct dirent - same as Unix */
struct dirent {
    long d_ino;                    /* inode (always 1 in WIN32) */
    off_t d_off;                /* offset to this dirent */
    unsigned short d_reclen;    /* length of d_name */
    char d_name[_MAX_FNAME+1];    /* filename (null terminated) */
};
/* typedef DIR - not the same as Unix */
typedef struct {
    long handle;                /* _findfirst/_findnext handle */
    short offset;                /* offset into directory */
    short finished;             /* 1 if there are not more files */
    struct _finddata_t fileinfo;  /* from _findfirst/_findnext */
    char *dir;                  /* the dir we are reading */
    struct dirent dent;         /* the dirent to return */
} DIR;
/* Function prototypes */
API_EXPORT(DIR *) opendir(const char *);
API_EXPORT(struct dirent *) readdir(DIR *);
API_EXPORT(int) closedir(DIR *);
#endif /* ndef APACHE_READDIR_H */


I cut this down to what's below, and relative paths didn't work 
anymore. I'm no C programmer, so this is probably all the help 
I can provide. Well, I can compile and test more snapshots if 
needed.  


/*
 * Structures and types used to implement opendir/readdir/closedir
 * on Windows 95/NT.
 */
#ifndef APACHE_READDIR_H
#define APACHE_READDIR_H
#include <io.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#endif /* ndef APACHE_READDIR_H */


As for compile-time errors, both builds yielded just the usual 
bunch of benign macro redefinitions and maybe some signed/unsigned 
int comparisions. 


At 09:19 AM 8/30/00 -0600, Zak Greant wrote the following:
-------------------------------------------------------------- 
>At 03:05 PM 8/30/00 +0200, you wrote:
>>4.0.2 and latest CVS (php4-200008300445) on NT4 SP5 with
>>apache-1_3_20000825161201 still affected. Should I try it
>>with 1.3.12?
>
>Hi Cynic,
>
>If you have time, that would be great! :) I anticipate that you will get exactly the same results.
>
>- Zak
>
------end of quote------ 

Another Update from cynic:

Update: relative paths work on php4-200008310545 with 
apache-1.3_20000831101201. It's clear the problem was 
with the cut-down readdir.h. However, PHP still fails 
to build unless one comments out the definition of 
mode_t in %apachedir%/src/os/win32/os.h. Also, the 
abovementioned snapshot reports itself as 4.0.2 (no 
-dev suffix).

User reports that bug disappeared several versions ago.