Can I encrypt PHP source or compile it so others can't see it? and how?

Question

I need to encrypt some PHP source that I\'ve released to the public.

Is this possible? Can PHP be \"compiled\" ?

Answer 1

since they need to run on a wide range of boxes, some of which don't have access to install things like Zend Optimizer and PHP Express Loader

If you need your code to be able to run on a standard version of PHP without any modules then the answer is NO. There is no method of compilation that is going to work on the wide variety of different PHP installations.