enable mysql 5.5 for php

I currently have mysql 5.5 installed. when installing php-mysql on centos 5, it failed due to dependency errors. Seems like the version in the repo conflicts with the MYSQL already installed on the system.

# yum install php-mysql
Loaded plugins: rhnplugin, security
Setting up Install Process
Resolving Dependencies
--> Running transaction check
---> Package php-mysql.x86_64 0:5.1.6-27.el5_5.3 set to be updated

--> Processing Dependency: php-pdo for package: php-mysql
--> Processing Dependency: libmysqlclient.so.15(libmysqlclient_15)(64bit) for package: php-mysql
--> Processing Dependency: libmysqlclient.so.15()(64bit) for package: php-mysql
--> Running transaction check
---> Package mysql.x86_64 0:5.0.77-4.el5_5.5 set to be updated
--> Processing Dependency: perl(DBI) for package: mysql
---> Package php-pdo.x86_64 0:5.1.6-27.el5_5.3 set to be updated
--> Running transaction check
---> Package perl-DBI.x86_64 0:1.52-2.el5 set to be updated
--> Processing Conflict: mysql conflicts MySQL

--> Finished Dependency Resolution
mysql-5.0.77-4.el5_5.5.x86_64 from rhel-x86_64-server-5 has depsolving problems
  --> mysql conflicts with MySQL-server
Error: mysql conflicts with MySQL-server
 You could try using --skip-broken to work around the problem
 You could try running: package-cleanup --problems
                        package-cleanup --dupes
                        rpm -Va --nofiles --nodigest
The program package-cleanup is found in the yum-utils package.

Answer

Normally this can be fixed by installing MySQL's MySQL-shared-compat package. This will override Redhat's client library and provide what the other packages need. Then yum won't (hopefully) be tempted to install Redhat's dodgy mysql server.