what happens if php.ini is missing?

Question

What happens if php.ini is missing? Does PHP load with a default configuration? In phpinfo(), it says the configuration file path is /etc, however it also says Loaded Conf

Answer 1

PHP has what amounts to a php.ini compiled into it. The php.ini file on the system is there merely to override those pre-compiled defaults. If there's no php.ini, the compile-time values are in charge.

Answer 2

It does load default settings, yes.