Is it possible to use a pear package without pear itself?

Question

Hi,

Honestly, I know nothing about pear (... installation and all). But I know that there are MANY useful functions available through pear. I wonder if it is possible to use a source file out of the repository and use it with complete disregard for the rest of pear?

Thanks

Edit: After I read Mike's answer I think I'd better explain more. What I mean is "is it technically possible to use a source file out of the repository and use it with complete disregard for the rest of pear?

For instance Zend Framework offers canned functionality too, but the packages are so tightly interleaved that you simply cannot use a source file in isolation and have to include many others on which it depends. Well, does the same, or a similar condition exist with pear?

Answer 1

It depends on the package - it may or may not utilise functionality in the base PEAR classes, such as throwing PEAR_Exceptions, making use of the PEAR registry and so on.

Honestly, you are far better off installing the package through pear than downloading the source code and manually extracting it to some directory inside your include_path. By using the pear installer to set up the package you won't waste time later on should you need to install a later version or manage dependencies between various packages - just let the installer take care of it.