John Clement wrote:

...

i need to know where i can find php version 5.2?

you'll probably want to have a look here

http://www.php.net/get/php-5.2.6.tar.bz2/from/a/mirror

And then make that into an rpm? Or just work around the packaging system on CentOS?

Not a good idea.

There are some packages in the CentOS-Testing repository (which require you to give feedback to the CentOS developers via http://bugs.centos.org, there is Jason Litka's repository and there is Remi Collet's repository.

But: If you have problems with the packages from there, then bug the people you got the packages from - not CentOS.

Anyway, all of those means of distribution are way better than working around package management.

Ralph