Want to run PHP and access Java? Here's how to do it on Windows XP using Apace and Apache Tomcat. Apache Tomcat is a Servlet container developed at the Apache Software Foundation (ASF). Tomcat implements the Java Servlet and the JavaServer Pages (JSP) specifications from Sun Microsystems, and provides a "pure Java" HTTP web server environment for Java code to run.

They go with the XAMPP distribution for the web server setup (for simplicity rather than on a unix-based system) and include the configuration and installation procedures to get everything up and running (screenshots included).

Sometimes, you want to run PHP with Tomcat. Why? Well, you may have a legacy product, for instance, that will require servlets for many more years. Or you may be using this gigantic Java program and are only interested in adding a tiny PHP piece on the side.

It's a pretty simple process and most of the steps are the standard "download, install, unpack" sorts of things. The important things are the web.xml document you create and the additions to the servlet.properties file to make the PHP module work.