pecl ERROR: `phpize’ failed
Solution from: http://kagan.mactane.org/blog/2009/05/11/workaround-for-pearpecl-failure-with-message-error-phpize-failed/
If you’ve gotten an “ERROR: `phpize’ failed” message when trying to run a “pecl install” or “pear install” command, try running phpinfo() — if you see --enable-sigchild in the “Configure Command” section near the very top, then you’re most likely being bitten by this bug.
Potential Fixes and Workarounds
The PHP dev team recommends recompiling without the offending flag.
However, you may not be able to do that, for any of various reasons. (You may have installed from a binary package, for instance — like most people these days.) Or it may simply seem like an excessive hassle. I offer the following patch as-is, without any guarantee or support.
First, ensure that you have the latest version of PEAR::Builder. Look in your PEAR/Builder.php file — On most Linux and Unix installations, this is likely to be in /usr/lib/php/PEAR/Builder.php, or possibly /usr/local/lib/php/PEAR/Builder.php.
On Windows systems, PHP might be installed nearly anywhere, but supposing it’s in c:\php, then the file you’re looking for will be in c:\php\PEAR\PEAR\Builder.php (yes, that’s two PEARs in a row).
Check the “@version” line in the big comment block at the beginning of the file; the line you want should be around line 19 or so. If says it’s less than version 1.38 (the latest one, at the time I’m writing this post), then try upgrading. Running “pear upgrade pear” should work. Then you can install this patch file:
Download the patch file and place it somewhere on your machine. Log in and cd to the PEAR directory that contains the Builder.php file. Then run the patch command. In the following example, I’ve placed the patch file in root’s home directory:
root@finrod:~# ls
loadlin16c.txt loadlin16c.zip patch-pear-builder-1.38.txt
root@finrod:~# cd /usr/lib/php/PEAR
root@finrod:/usr/lib/php/PEAR# cp Builder.php Builder.bak.php
root@finrod:/usr/lib/php/PEAR# patch -p0 < /root/patch-pear-builder-1.38.txt
patching file Builder.php
root@finrod:/usr/lib/php/PEAR#
Naturally, if the patch file doesn’t work for some reason, or it breaks things, you can just cp the backup file back into place.