Some highlights of changes since 4.2.3:
* PCRE updated to 4.3, GD to 2.0.15
* improved Apache2 support
* much improved stream & URL wrapper support, output compression support
* added CLI (Command Line Interface) SAPI
* debug_backtrace() backported from ZendEngine2
* faster build system
* huge number of other bug fixes and improvements
Packaging changes:
* 'pcre', 'xml', and 'session' modules folded back into main package -
'pcre' and 'xml' is required by PEAR, and 'session' is just too essential
to be separate
* 'gd' module now uses bundled PHP GD library, which is better integrated
* PHP modules use shared distinfo when possible to ease future PHP updates
* ${PREFIX}/bin/php is now CLI version, ${PREFIX}/libexec/cgi-big/php
remains CGI version
