Editing PEAR (section)

==PECL==
The PHP Extension Community Library (PECL), (pronounced 'pickle'<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://pear.php.net/manual/en/about.pear.php|title=Manual :: What is PEAR?|website=pear.php.net|access-date=2017-03-21}}</ref>) is conceptually very similar to PEAR, and indeed PECL modules are installed with the PEAR Package Manager. PECL contains [[C (programming language)|C]] extensions for compiling into PHP. As C programs, PECL extensions run more efficiently than PEAR packages. PECL includes modules for XML-parsing, access to additional databases, mail-parsing, embedding [[Perl]] or [[Python (programming language)|Python]] in PHP scripts and for compiling PHP scripts.  PECL spun off from the PEAR Project in October 2003. Originally it was called the PEAR Extension Code Library, but it now operates independently of PEAR.<ref name="pear-news20031015">{{cite web |url=https://pear.php.net/news/pecl-split.php |title=Own infrastructure for PECL |last=Jansen |first=Martin |date=2003-10-15 |df=mdy |department=News |website=[[PEAR]] |publisher=PEAR Website Team |access-date=2023-02-28 |quote=PECL, formerly known as PHP Extension Code Library, has been renamed to PHP Extension Community Library. |url-status=bot: unknown |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230228205534/https://pear.php.net/news/pecl-split.php |archive-date=2023-02-28 }}</ref>

PECL extensions are documented alongside standard extensions within the PHP Manual, so there is no special manual for PECL extensions. Also, several{{examples|date=July 2015}} extensions began their development cycle in PECL and ended up in core (the distributed PHP source) and in many{{examples|date=July 2015}} of these cases the PECL versions become unmaintained.