Compile and Install PHP 5.4 from Source

installing.sh

#Download Apache and extract it

$ ./configure --help 

#You will get a list of options, run with enable-so

$ ./configure --enable-so

$ make

$ make install

# Now you can start and stop apache.

# Download php source from github.com or php.net . Extract it and run 

$ ./configure --enable-mysqlnd --with-apxs2=/usr/local/apache2/bin/apxs 
 --disable-ipv6 --with-openssl --with-zlib --enable-bcmath --with-bz2 
 --with-curl --enable-exif --enable-ftp --with-gd --enable-gd-native-ttf 
 --with-imap-ssl  --with-ldap --enable-mbstring --with-mcrypt 
 --with-mhash --with-mysql --with-mysqli  --enable-pcntl 
 --with-pdo-mysql --with-pdo-sqlite --enable-shmop  --enable-soap 
 --enable-sockets --with-xmlrpc --with-xsl    

# Feel free to remove the ones you don't need :-) , probably ldap , soap etc.

$ make

$ make install

# Remember to symbolic link /usr/bin/php to /usr/local/bin/php .

in my case, i needed to install extra packages like apr,apr-util,pcre2 and had to do some extra configurations.