Phing is a PHP project build tool based on Apache Ant. A build system helps you to perform a group of actions using a single command. If you’re wondering why PHP needs a build tool, consider a work flow where you write code and unit tests on your local machine, and if the tests pass you upload the code to staging/production server and make any changes to the production database. Without a build file, you’ll need to go through each step manually. If you are doing continuous integration, you’ll be doing the same steps over and over again. It’s too easy to accidentally omit something in the process and end up with serious problem in production.
Phing helps overcome such issues by automating tasks like running unit tests, applying database changes, deploying application code, etc.
In an article published on PHPMaster,Vito Tardia has given the details how you can use Phing to deploy our applications. Read complete article at PHPMaster