A unified repository of code written in both PHP and C complete with a dependency-checking installer.

PEAR is designed to let you install and maintain packages for PHP in a very easy manner

Similar in idea and intent as CPAN for Perl

Only very high quality packages are allowed into PEAR

All PEAR packages follow a specific coding guidelines

PECL (pronounced Pickle) is subset of PEAR

PECL stands for *P*HP *E*xtension *C*ode *L*ibrary

PECL is made up of C and C++ code, not PHP

PECL packages are modules for PHP, which add additional functionality to PHP

They are still installed and treated as normal PEAR packages

Why use PEAR?

PEAR contains many packages which add additional functionality to PHP

Using some of this functionality can save time and money

How do I get PEAR?

PEAR is automatically compiled along with PHP, so you should already have it!

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