$mysql_link = mysql_connect('localhost:/tmp/mysql.fred','indigo','colour'); # open MySQL connection

Will fail. It will try the local host but ignore the socket. I have tried using 127.0.0.1/the domain name and a port number. Every combination I could think of but it still won't work.

One solution I was give was :-
Copy  file libmysqlclient.so.6 from /your/path/to/mysql/lib/mysql to /usr/local/lib

But that didn't work. Although PHP3 works fine.

My Configure line is :-
'./configure' '--with-mysql=/usr/local/mysql' '--enable-track-vars''--with-apxs=/usr/local/apache/bin/apxs'

php.ini was unchanged. Every user has a MySQL instance with a different port number on shared IP address's PHP3 works fine but PHP won't talk to the unix socket..

Regards
Darren