configure: error: Oracle Instant Client SDK header files not found

First of all, let me admit I am not an Oracle guru. I know enough to connect to my php apps with the client and make it work. So for others like you, here is what I did.

While installing PHP 5.2.1 I struggled for days after receiving this message:




------------------------------
checking Oracle Instant Client directory... /export/home/oracle/client
checking Oracle Instant Client SDK header directory... configure: error: Oracle Instant Client SDK header files not found
------------------------------


The solution:
I ultimately moved to 5.3.0 and did the following:

1. Install the oracle Client from http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/tech/oci/instantclient/index.html
ALSO INSTALL THE *Instant Client Package - SDK

/export/home/oracle/instantclient_11_1

To be safe I installed everything:
Instant Client Package - Basic
Instant Client Package - SQL*Plus:
Instant Client Package - SDK:
Instant Client Package - ODBC:
Instant Client Package - WRC:

2. install the Oracle Database 11g Release 1 Client
http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/database/oracle11g/111060_sol64soft.html


I chose: solaris.sparc64_11gR1_client.zip

To perform a silent install (w/o gui) you use the response files. There is a sample response file in the instantclient_11_1/response directory:

The key variables are the ORACLE_HOME and ORACLE_BASE

The ones I didn't know the answer to I commented out.


# ./runInstaller -silent -response /ftproot/dev/client/instantClient.rsp


3.  set your environment variables
I put min in the .bash_profile
--------------------
PATH=$PATH:/export/home/oracle/bin:/export/home/oracle:/export/home/oracle/instantclient:/export/home/oracle/sqlplus/mesg:/export/home/oracle/instantclient_11_1
export PATH
ORACLE_BASE=/export/home/oracle ;export ORACLE_BASE
ORACLE_HOME=/export/home/oracle; export ORACLE_HOME
ORACLE_OWNER=oracle ; export ORACLE_OWNER
ORACLE_SID=cprod1 ; export ORACLE_SID
SQLPATH=/export/home/oracle/instantclient_11_1/ ;export SQLPATH
NLS_LANG=AMERICAN_AMERICA.UTF8 ; export NLS_LANG
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/export/home/oracle/lib:/export/home/oracle/client:/export/home/oracle/instantclient/sdk/include  ; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
--------------------

4. Compile PHP with whatever options you need and append with
./configure --prefix=/usr/local/apache\
    --with-apache=../apache_1.3.41 \
    --with-bz2 \
    --enable-ftp \
    --with-libxml-dir=$BLIB/xml2 \
     --enable-dom \
    --enable-simplexml
.......
.....


 --with-oci8=instantclient,/export/home/oracle/instantclient_11_1 \