pdo_sqlsrv dropped from static binary defaults in the PHP 8.5 upgrade (#2168) — can it be restored?

[kiatng]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

pdo_sqlsrv was dropped from the static binary's default extension set as a side effect of the PHP 8.5 upgrade, and I think the reason for dropping it no longer applies.

Timeline:

• pdo_sqlsrv in default extension set #1748 asked for pdo_sqlsrv in the default set, and feat: add pdo_sqlsrv extension to static binary #1750 added it (merged 2025-07-17, ce9620b).
• Update static binary PHP version to 8.5 #2168 "Update static binary PHP version to 8.5" (merged 2026-02-20, f388348) removed pdo_sqlsrv from defaultExtensions in build-static.sh. The diff only changes that one line among the version bump, and the PR body is empty, so the removal isn't mentioned in the title, body, or docs.

I assume it was dropped because msphpsql didn't support PHP 8.5 at that moment — which was true on 2026-02-20. But msphpsql v5.13.0 shipped seven days later (2026-02-27) with "Support for PHP 8.4 and PHP 8.5", plus Alpine 3.20–3.23, which covers the musl target the fully-static build uses. v5.13.1 followed on 2026-04-30. pdo_sqlsrv is also still listed as supported by static-php-cli.

Effect on the released binary (FrankenPHP v1.12.3, PHP 8.5.6, fully-static Linux x86_64):

$ frankenphp php-cli -r 'print_r(PDO::getAvailableDrivers());'
Array
(
    [0] => mysql
    [1] => pgsql
    [2] => sqlite
)

Because fully-static musl binaries can't load extensions dynamically, there's no way to add it back at runtime — an app that talks to SQL Server has to either drop the static binary or shell out to a system PHP CLI for every query.

Describe the solution you'd like

Re-add pdo_sqlsrv to defaultExtensions in build-static.sh, now that msphpsql supports PHP 8.5 on the relevant targets.

If it's being deliberately kept out — binary size, the unixODBC/msodbcsql dependency, or musl build trouble — that's completely fair, and a note in docs/static.md saying so would save the next person the git archaeology. Happy to open a PR for either the extension or the doc note.

Describe alternatives you've considered

• Building a custom static binary with PHP_EXTENSIONS=...,pdo_sqlsrv — works, but means maintaining our own build and release pipeline just to regain one extension that was previously in the default set.
• Switching to the glibc-based mostly-static build, which can load extensions dynamically. The extension has to be compiled with ZTS support, and package managers don't ship ZTS builds, so this means compiling msphpsql by hand inside static-builder-gnu and keeping it in step with each upgrade.
• Shelling out to a system PHP CLI that has pdo_sqlsrv installed. This is what we do today. It works, but it means the web runtime and the CLI runtime have different database capabilities, which is an awkward thing to design around.

[kiatng]

Closing this — my premise was wrong, and I should have read the discussion on #2168 before filing.

I based this on the PR's empty body and its diff, and guessed the removal was about msphpsql not supporting PHP 8.5 yet. It wasn't. @henderkes had already noted in #2168 that 8.5 support was merged upstream before the removal, and then found the actual blocker: the mssql ODBC driver force-loads libssl.so/libcrypto.so and deadlocks when OpenSSL is already statically linked into the binary — uniquely among the drivers you ship (microsoft/msphpsql#1573).

That's not something a msphpsql release can fix. Encrypt=no doesn't avoid it either, since ODBC still loads OpenSSL to encrypt the login packet. And that issue was closed on 2026-05-29 as not actionable in the PHP driver repo — filed with Microsoft's ODBC team on an internal backlog with no public tracker.

So removing it was the right call, and it can't come back until Microsoft fixes the driver. Apologies for the noise.

One small thing that might save the next person the same archaeology: the reasoning is currently only in the #2168 review thread. A line in docs/static.md — something like "pdo_sqlsrv cannot be included in static builds; the mssql ODBC driver conflicts with statically linked OpenSSL (microsoft/msphpsql#1573)" — would surface it. Happy to open a PR for just that if it's welcome, but I'll leave it to you rather than assume.