How do I build the Firebird database extension (ext-interbase) for PHP on a MacOS M1 Monterey? - macos

Question

Firebird Extension for PHP on MacOS M1
I have PHP7.4 installed with homebrew and the Xcode command line tools.
I followed the instructions as per the source repository here https://github.com/FirebirdSQL/php-firebird using the following methodology, I have changed the Linux formula to suite the MacOS library locations as per this answer here
Issues compiling firebird driver for PHP-7.4 on macos:
git clone https://github.com/FirebirdSQL/php-firebird.git
cd php-firebird
phpize
CPPFLAGS=-I/Library/Frameworks/Firebird.framework/Headers LDFLAGS=-L/Library/Frameworks/Firebird.framework/Resources/lib ./configure
make
The error I get is
configure: error: libfbclient, libgds or libib_util not found! Check config.log for more information.
In the log file it refers to the following which is the crux of the issue
ld: warning: ignoring file /opt/firebird/lib/libib_util.dylib, building for macOS-arm64 but attempting to link with file built for macOS-x86_64
The problem is that the Firebird package for Mac is only built for the 64bit architecture and not the ARM architecture.

Answer 1

Solution
I always seem to struggle building the extension for Firebird on MacOS (Intel or M1) and after a month of leaving the problem I discovered the solution which I leave here for myself all of you who have hit this wall, until ARM is supported on MacOS for Firebird we probably have to run the 64 bit version with 64 bit PHP. The steps below should get you up and running. I came up with 2 solutions, the first most obvious one was to make a docker build.
Docker Solution
docker run -v $(pwd):/app tina4stack/php -ini | grep interbase
Home brew solution
The second solution (more complicated) was to follow these steps, I don't always like to run a docker engine for simple things.
Install latest Firebird for MacOS
First, make sure you have installed the latest Firebird MacOS package, Firebird 3.0 at the time of writing has only one you can install.
The next problem I ran into was home-brew had installed an ARM version of PHP which made the linking to the x86_64 architecture impossible. Kudos to the documentation here https://austencam.com/posts/setting-up-an-m1-mac-for-laravel-development-with-homebrew-php-mysql-valet-and-redis
Install Rosetta
First I installed Rosetta (helps run 64 bit apps on MacOS ARM)
/usr/sbin/softwareupdate --install-rosetta --agree-to-license
Install Home-brew for 64bit architecture
Next I removed homebrew and reinstalled it with the arch -x86_64 bit flag
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/uninstall.sh)"
arch -x86_64 /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install.sh)"
Install PHP7.4
Then installed a fresh php#7.4
arch -x86_64 brew install php#7.4
Compile the extension
git clone https://github.com/FirebirdSQL/php-firebird.git
cd php-firebird
phpize
CFLAGS='-arch x86_64' CPPFLAGS=-I/Library/Frameworks/Firebird.framework/Headers LDFLAGS=-L/Library/Frameworks/Firebird.framework/Resources/lib ./configure
make
sudo make install
Tying it all together
I added the following to my php.ini file
extension=interbase
If you don't know where to edit your ini file, run the following command:
php -ini | grep php.ini
When I ran php -ini | grep interpose I got errors about not finding the firebird libraries. In the end I copied the libraries to the PHP bin and lib folders
cp /Library/Frameworks/Firebird.framework/Resources/lib/* /usr/local/Cellar/php#7.4/7.4.25/lib
cp /Library/Frameworks/Firebird.framework/Resources/lib/* /usr/local/Cellar/php#7.4/7.4.25/bin
I'm sure someone could comment on making the above a bit neater but I was happy to find that the ini command returns now as expected.
php -ini | grep interbase
interbase
Let me know if you hit issues I didn't find, there were some other things I tried for the Firebird library resolution but I'm not sure they worked.
Installing modules with PECL
As an addition the the above solution, easily install other PHP modules using the following command
arch -x86_64 pecl install <module>
Example
arch -x86_64 pecl install openswoole