What is the different between php5 and php5-dev

Question

When I install php on ubuntu, somebody use

sudo apt-get install php5

somebody use

sudo apt-get install php5-dev

What is the different between them?

Answer 1

php5-dev contains files to develop PHP modules:

This package provides the files from the PHP5 source needed for compiling additional modules.

php5 is a meta package that installs the PHP runtime.

Answer 2

The command

  apt-cache search php

would tell you the difference:

   php5 - server-side, HTML-embedded scripting language (metapackage)
   php5-dev - Files for PHP5 module development