$ wget -O php.tar.bz2 http://link/to/the/php/file
$ tar xvjf php.tar.bz2
$ cd php-5.4.*
$ ./configure –with-apxs2=/usr/apache2/2.2/bin/apxs –prefix=/usr/php/5.4
$ gsed -ibak ‘s,\-mt,,’ Makefile
$ gsed -i.bak ‘s,\-i \-a \-n php5 libphp5\.la,-i -n php5 libphp5.la,’ Makefile
$ gmake -j16

make a copy of php/php5.3.conf and rename it to php5.4.conf

Replace in the file: 5.3 with 5.4
and replace the original module with: LoadModule php5_module libexec/libphp5.so

then change php.conf and redirect the includes to the new php5.4.conf file