Installing ChartDirector for PHP

ChartDirector for PHP is supported on Windows, Linux and macOS. Please verify the ChartDirector distribution you have downloaded is for the operating system edition of PHP you are using. If you are not sure the type of PHP you are using, you may use phpinfo to find out.

Note for Windows: As 64-bit Windows can also run 32-bit applications, it is not uncommon for 32-bit PHP to be installed on 64-bit Windows. If you are using 32-bit Windows PHP, you should use the Windows (32-bit) edition of "ChartDirector for PHP", even if the operating system is Windows 64-bit.

Note for Linux: ChartDirector supports 4 types of Linux architectures - 32-bit Intel (i386/i686), 64-bit Intel (x86_64), 32-bit ARM (such as armv7l) and 64-bit ARM (aarch64). Make sure you download the ChartDirector edition that matches your Linux architecture.

Note for macOS: ChartDirector for PHP on macOS is a universal binary that supports both Intel and Apple silicon CPUs.

To get started, you may extract the files from the ChartDirector distribution to your web server HTML directory.

ChartDirector for PHP is implemented as a PHP extension in "ChartDirector/lib". There is also an include file "phpchartdir.php", which interfaces PHP scripts with the ChartDirector PHP extension.

To install the ChartDirector PHP extension, simply add a line to the PHP configuration file, then restart PHP.

Configure PHP to load the ChartDirector extension

To configure PHP to load the ChartDirector extension, simply add the following line to the PHP configuration file, usually called php.ini.

extension=/path/to/ChartDirector/lib/phpchartdir###.dll

In the above, please replace "/path/to" to the actual path directory that contains the ChartDirector distribution. Note that the path is a file system path that starts from the root of the file system. It is not a URL path that starts from the web server HTML directory.

The "phpchartdir###.dll" depends on your PHP version, thread safety setting, and operating system according to following table. You may use phpinfo to determine the type of PHP you are using.

PHP Version	Windows		Linux, macOS
PHP Version	Non-Thread-Safe	Thread-Safe	Non-Thread-Safe	Thread-Safe
5.0.0 - 5.0.2	N/A	phpchartdir500.dll	phpchartdir500.dll	phpchartdir500mt.dll
5.0.3 - 5.0.5	N/A	phpchartdir503.dll	phpchartdir503.dll	phpchartdir503mt.dll
5.1.x	N/A	phpchartdir510.dll	phpchartdir510.dll	phpchartdir510mt.dll
5.2.x	phpchartdir520nts.dll	phpchartdir520.dll	phpchartdir520.dll	phpchartdir520mt.dll
5.3.x	phpchartdir530nts.dll	phpchartdir530.dll	phpchartdir530.dll	phpchartdir530mt.dll
5.4.x	phpchartdir540nts.dll	phpchartdir540.dll	phpchartdir540.dll	phpchartdir540mt.dll
5.5.x	phpchartdir550nts.dll	phpchartdir550.dll	phpchartdir550.dll	phpchartdir550mt.dll
5.6.x	phpchartdir560nts.dll	phpchartdir560.dll	phpchartdir560.dll	phpchartdir560mt.dll
7.0.x	phpchartdir700nts.dll	phpchartdir700.dll	phpchartdir700.dll	phpchartdir700mt.dll
7.1.x	phpchartdir710nts.dll	phpchartdir710.dll	phpchartdir710.dll	phpchartdir710mt.dll
7.2.x	phpchartdir720nts.dll	phpchartdir720.dll	phpchartdir720.dll	phpchartdir720mt.dll
7.3.x	phpchartdir730nts.dll	phpchartdir730.dll	phpchartdir730.dll	phpchartdir730mt.dll
7.4.x	phpchartdir740nts.dll	phpchartdir740.dll	phpchartdir740.dll	phpchartdir740mt.dll
8.0.x	phpchartdir800nts.dll	phpchartdir800.dll	phpchartdir800.dll	phpchartdir800mt.dll
8.1.x	phpchartdir810nts.dll	phpchartdir810.dll	phpchartdir810.dll	phpchartdir810mt.dll
8.2.x	phpchartdir820nts.dll	phpchartdir820.dll	phpchartdir820.dll	phpchartdir820mt.dll
8.3.x	phpchartdir830nts.dll	phpchartdir830.dll	phpchartdir830.dll	phpchartdir830mt.dll

Although the extension statement only references one file, it is dependent on other files in "ChartDirector/lib". If you want to copy the extension file to another directory, you must copy everything (including the fonts subdirectory in the Linux edition of ChartDirector) in "ChartDirector/lib" to the same directory.

It is suggested you use an absolute path to load the ChartDirector for PHP extension. If you just specify a filename without the path, PHP will assume the file is in the PHP extension directory, and you would need to copy everything in "ChartDirector/lib" to the PHP extension directory.

Restart PHP

For the updated "php.ini" to take effect, the PHP needs to be restarted. The exact steps to restart PHP without rebooting the server depends on the PHP type. The PHP type is listed in the "Server API" field in phpinfo. If the PHP is of the FPM type (usually listed as FPM/FastCGI), you may restart the FPM service to restart the PHP. In other cases, you can restart the web server to restart the PHP.

ChartDirector for PHP comes with a number of sample PHP scripts under the "ChartDirector/phpdemo" directory. They are good examples and tutorials on how to use ChartDirector.

To try the sample scripts, use the following URL to view the sample scripts index page (note: the exact URL depends on where you have extracted ChartDirector to).

http://aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd/ChartDirector/phpdemo/index.php

In the sample scripts index page, there is a "check installation" link in the right window. Please click on that link. If it displays the ChartDirector version with some other information, it can be confirmed that ChartDirector is installed successfully. Note that messages in the "Boot Log" or the "Font Loading Test" are informational only and are not error messages.

After confirming that ChartDirector is installed successfully, you may click the links in the left window to see the sample charts.

To use ChartDirector, please include the ChartDirector script "phpchartdir.php" in your own script using the PHP "require_once" statement. For example, all ChartDirector sample scripts use the following line to include "phpchartdir.php":

require_once("../lib/phpchartdir.php");

Note that require_once assumes the path is a file system path, not a URL. If the path starts with a slash "/", the slash refers to the file system root, not the web document root.

If you have purchased a license to use ChartDirector, you should have a license key delivered to your via email and postal mail. Please install the license key as according to the following instructions.

Even without a license key, ChartDirector will work normally, but the charts will include a yellow bar at the bottom that marks the charts as produced by the "unregistered" ChartDirector. You can freely test ChartDirector for as long as necessary.

If your license key is for upgrading from a previous version of ChartDirector, please append the upgrade license key to the previous version license key, and use the combined license key.

Please follow the steps below to install the license key for the "ChartDirector Developer License":

Create an ASCII file using Notepad or other text editor, and put the license key in it. The whole file should contain only the license key. Save the file as "chartdir.lic".

Note that some text editors, such as Notepad, may automatically append ".txt" to the filename. If file is saved as "chartdir.lic", it may end up as "chartdir.lic.txt". In this case, please rename the file back to "chartdir.lic".
Copy the "chartdir.lic" to the windows directory (normally "c:\windows" on Windows) or the "/etc" directory (for Linux/macOS).

The above directory is a system directory and may require administrative privileges for write access. If you are copying using the command prompt, please make sure you use "Run As administrator" to start the command prompt (for Windows), or use "sudo" (for Linux/macOS).
If you cannot copy to a system directory (eg. due to lack of administrative privilege), you can copy "chartdir.lic" to the same directory as the active "libchartdir.so" (for Linux/macOS) or "chartdir.dll" (for Windows), which should be in your PHP extension directory.

The license file should remove the "unregistered" message on the charts. If the license file appears to have no effect, please refer to http://www.advsofteng.com/license_diag.html for trouble-shooting instructions.