1] Introduction
PEAR is short for "PHP Extension and Application Repository" and is pronounced just like the fruit. It is a framework and distribution system for reusable PHP components. PEAR provides the PHP components in the form of so called "Packages". Each package is a separate project with its own development team, version number, release cycle, documentation and a defined relation to other packages (including dependencies). Packages are distributed as gzipped tar files with a description file inside, and installed on your local system using the PEAR installer. Examples of package names are "MP3_Id", "Archive_Tar" and "HTTP_Post". Packages may relate to each other through explicit dependencies, but there is no automatic relation between for example a package and its "parent" in the package tree (for example, "HTTP_Post" is by default independent of "HTTP").
2]Command line installer
The command line installer is the easiest way to install PEAR packages on your system: It connects to the PEAR package server via a simple HTTP connection, loads the package on your system and installs it to the desired location. Simply run the following line on your shell:
pear install <package>
<package> has to be replaced with the name of the package you want to install (e.g. HTTP_Upload). To get a list of the available packages give the command
pear list-all
Here's a list of some commands available to the pear command line tool –
upgrade Upgrade Package
list List Installed Packages
install Install Package
uninstall Un-install Package
remote-list List remote packages
info Display information about a package
3]How do I install a package when I get the error message "No release with state equal to: 'stable' found for 'Packagename"?
The package in question does have releases, but none that are stable. There are two solutions.
1. Set preferred_state to alpha or beta and then install
$ pear config-set preferred_state alpha
$ pear install Packagename
2. Find out the stability or version number of the latest release and install it directly.
$ pear install Packagename-alpha
$ pear install Packagename-1.5.3
For more on PEAR please view the url --
http://pear.php.net/