During an upgrade from PHP 3.0.12 to PHP 3.0.16, 
I discovered the following unexpected/changed behavior 
from Apache .conf directive parsing.

I think this may be a result of the patch to mod_php3.c between releases
3.0.12 and 3.0.13:
    Revision 1.93 Sat Sep 18 22:12:09 1999 UTC by rasmus 
    Changed since 1.92: +57 -54 lines
    I think this should finally fix the Apache .conf directive problems
    related to overriding directives set at higher levels inside sub-dirs

Example:

php3.ini
########
...
engine = Off ; disable PHP 3.0 parser by default
magic_quotes_gpc = On ; magic quotes for incoming GET/POST/Cookie data
...


httpd.conf
##########
...
<VirtualHost _default_:*>
...
  DocumentRoot /www/apache/htdocs
  php3_engine on
  # Files in test/ dir are parsed as expected 
  # but only because we have given "php3_engine on"
  <Directory /www/apache/htdocs/test>
    php3_engine on
    php3_magic_quotes_gpc Off
  </Directory>
  
  # Files in test/subdir/ are not parsed by php 
  # It seems php3.ini engine = Off is reapplied 
  # ignoring that the parent dir's "php3_engine on"
  <Directory /www/apache/htdocs/test/subdir>
    php3_magic_quotes_gpc On
  </Directory>
  
  # Files in test2/ are not parsed by php 
  # It seems php3.ini engine = Off is reapplied 
  # ignoring the VirtualHost's "php3_engine on"
  <Directory /www/apache/htdocs/test2>
    php3_magic_quotes_gpc Off
  </Directory>
...