How to determine if APC is installed on a server

This article describes how to determine if the Alternative PHP Cache (APC) is currently installed on your server.

About APC

The Alternative PHP Cache (APC) is a PHP extension that provides opcode caching. By caching the compiled operation codes (opcodes) of PHP scripts, APC enables sites to serve page content significantly faster. APC runs on PHP 5.4 and earlier versions.

Because APC is a separate extension, it may or may not already be installed on your server. The following procedure explains how to determine if your server has the APC extension installed.

Determining if APC is installed

To determine if the APC extension is installed on your server, follow these steps:

1. Create a file that contains the following PHP code:

   <?php
       phpinfo();
   ?>

2. Save the file as info.php.
3. Upload the file to the public_html directory on your hosting account.
4. Use your browser to go to http://example.com/info.php, where example.com represents your website's domain name. The page displays a large amount of information about the server's PHP installation.

5. Use your browser to search for the term apc. If APC is installed, you see a section that resembles the following:
   

   

   For security reasons, you should remove the info.php file after you are done testing.

More Information

• For more information about OPcache, please visit https://php.net/manual/en/book.opcache.php.