Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Call to undefined function oci_connect() - php

Question

I am having problems with oci_connect() in PHP. I can't connect with an Oracle Database, after I had installed the Oracle InstantClient(32 Bit) and copied the required *.dll's in the apache/bin/ and xampp/php folders.
I get this:
Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Call to undefined function oci_connect()
in C:\xampp\htdocs\OracleTest\connect.php:9 Stack trace: #0 {main}
thrown in C:\xampp\htdocs\OracleTest\connect.php on line 9.
There is also the Problem that I am unable to load the dynamic libraries:
PHP Warning: PHP Startup: Unable to load dynamic library
'C:\xampp\php\ext\php_oci8_11g.dll' - The specified module could not
be found. in Unknown on line 0
Warning: PHP Startup: Unable to load dynamic library
'C:\xampp\php\ext\php_oci8_11g.dll' - The specified module could not
be found. in Unknown on line 0
My Code is this:
$oc_conn = oci_connect('127.0.0.1/XE','****', '****');
if($oc_conn)
{
echo "Success!!!";
}
else
{
$e = oci_error();
trigger_error(htmlentities($e['message'], ENT_QUOTES), E_USER_ERROR);
}
I am struggling on that Problem for over 3 weeks..I really need help, thank you in advance.

Answer 1

The "Call to undefined function oci_connect()" seems to be a secondary error resulting from a root cause error. The root cause error, as the error message says, seems to be that PHP cannot find the file named C:\xampp\php\ext\php_oci8_11g.dll. PHP will get this file name from the extension=php_oci8_12c.dll statement in your php.ini. It also seems that your php.ini has defined C:\xampp\php\ext\ as the place where extension code should be located.
FIX: Make sure the .dll is in C:\xampp\php\ext\, not just apache/bin. Also, make sure the name of the .dll is php_oci8_11g.dll, not oci.dll.
Successfully loading a dynamic library / extension will (usually) make new functions and classes available to your PHP code. Once you've got php_oci8_11g.dll loaded, you'll probably find that the oci_connect() error is fixed too.