A diff between my /etc/php.ini and the default php.ini file installed by Jose's Homebrew formula.

homebrew-php54-phpini

--- /etc/php.ini	2014-02-27 16:15:52.000000000 -0500
+++ /usr/local/etc/php/5.4/php.ini	2014-02-05 03:22:22.000000000 -0500
@@ -1,7 +1,4 @@
 [PHP]
-zend_extension=/usr/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20100525/xdebug.so
-xdebug.remote_enable=On
-detect_unicode = off

 ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
 ; About php.ini   ;
@@ -86,6 +83,8 @@
 ; development version only in development environments as errors shown to
 ; application users can inadvertently leak otherwise secure information.

+; This is php.ini-development INI file.
+
 ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
 ; Quick Reference ;
 ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
@@ -200,13 +199,12 @@
 engine = On

 ; This directive determines whether or not PHP will recognize code between
-; <? and ?> tags as PHP source which should be processed as such. It's been
-; recommended for several years that you not use the short tag "short cut" and
-; instead to use the full <?php and ?> tag combination. With the wide spread use
-; of XML and use of these tags by other languages, the server can become easily
-; confused and end up parsing the wrong code in the wrong context. But because
-; this short cut has been a feature for such a long time, it's currently still
-; supported for backwards compatibility, but we recommend you don't use them.
+; <? and ?> tags as PHP source which should be processed as such. It is
+; generally recommended that <?php and ?> should be used and that this feature
+; should be disabled, as enabling it may result in issues when generating XML
+; documents, however this remains supported for backward compatibility reasons.
+; Note that this directive does not control the <?= shorthand tag, which can be
+; used regardless of this directive.
 ; Default Value: On
 ; Development Value: Off
 ; Production Value: Off
@@ -375,7 +373,7 @@
 ; threat in any way, but it makes it possible to determine whether you use PHP
 ; on your server or not.
 ; http://php.net/expose-php
-expose_php = Off
+expose_php = On

 ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
 ; Resource Limits ;
@@ -384,7 +382,7 @@
 ; Maximum execution time of each script, in seconds
 ; http://php.net/max-execution-time
 ; Note: This directive is hardcoded to 0 for the CLI SAPI
-max_execution_time = 600
+max_execution_time = 30

 ; Maximum amount of time each script may spend parsing request data. It's a good
 ; idea to limit this time on productions servers in order to eliminate unexpectedly
@@ -405,7 +403,7 @@

 ; Maximum amount of memory a script may consume (128MB)
 ; http://php.net/memory-limit
-memory_limit = 1280M
+memory_limit = 128M

 ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
 ; Error handling and logging ;
@@ -461,7 +459,7 @@
 ; Development Value: E_ALL
 ; Production Value: E_ALL & ~E_DEPRECATED & ~E_STRICT
 ; http://php.net/error-reporting
-error_reporting = E_ALL & ~E_DEPRECATED & ~E_STRICT
+error_reporting = E_ALL

 ; This directive controls whether or not and where PHP will output errors,
 ; notices and warnings too. Error output is very useful during development, but
@@ -478,7 +476,7 @@
 ; Development Value: On
 ; Production Value: Off
 ; http://php.net/display-errors
-display_errors = Off
+display_errors = On

 ; The display of errors which occur during PHP's startup sequence are handled
 ; separately from display_errors. PHP's default behavior is to suppress those
@@ -489,7 +487,7 @@
 ; Development Value: On
 ; Production Value: Off
 ; http://php.net/display-startup-errors
-display_startup_errors = Off
+display_startup_errors = On

 ; Besides displaying errors, PHP can also log errors to locations such as a
 ; server-specific log, STDERR, or a location specified by the error_log
@@ -533,7 +531,7 @@
 ; Development Value: On
 ; Production Value: Off
 ; http://php.net/track-errors
-track_errors = Off
+track_errors = On

 ; Turn off normal error reporting and emit XML-RPC error XML
 ; http://php.net/xmlrpc-errors
@@ -672,7 +670,7 @@
 ; Its value may be 0 to disable the limit. It is ignored if POST data reading
 ; is disabled through enable_post_data_reading.
 ; http://php.net/post-max-size
-post_max_size = 200M
+post_max_size = 8M

 ; Automatically add files before PHP document.
 ; http://php.net/auto-prepend-file
@@ -754,7 +752,7 @@
 ; will look for to know it is OK to continue execution.  Setting this variable MAY
 ; cause security issues, KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING FIRST.
 ; http://php.net/cgi.redirect-status-env
-;cgi.redirect_status_env =
+;cgi.redirect_status_env =

 ; cgi.fix_pathinfo provides *real* PATH_INFO/PATH_TRANSLATED support for CGI.  PHP's
 ; previous behaviour was to set PATH_TRANSLATED to SCRIPT_FILENAME, and to not grok
@@ -906,7 +904,6 @@
 ;extension=php_tidy.dll
 ;extension=php_xmlrpc.dll
 ;extension=php_xsl.dll
-;extension=php_zip.dll

 ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
 ; Module Settings ;
@@ -919,7 +916,7 @@
 [Date]
 ; Defines the default timezone used by the date functions
 ; http://php.net/date.timezone
-date.timezone = US/Eastern
+;date.timezone =

 ; http://php.net/date.default-latitude
 ;date.default_latitude = 31.7667
@@ -986,7 +983,7 @@
 ; Default socket name for local MySQL connects.  If empty, uses the built-in
 ; MySQL defaults.
 ; http://php.net/pdo_mysql.default-socket
-pdo_mysql.default_socket=/tmp/mysql.sock
+pdo_mysql.default_socket=

 [Phar]
 ; http://php.net/phar.readonly
@@ -1135,7 +1132,7 @@
 ; Default socket name for local MySQL connects.  If empty, uses the built-in
 ; MySQL defaults.
 ; http://php.net/mysql.default-socket
-mysql.default_socket = /tmp/mysql.sock
+mysql.default_socket =

 ; Default host for mysql_connect() (doesn't apply in safe mode).
 ; http://php.net/mysql.default-host
@@ -1194,7 +1191,7 @@
 ; Default socket name for local MySQL connects.  If empty, uses the built-in
 ; MySQL defaults.
 ; http://php.net/mysqli.default-socket
-mysqli.default_socket = /tmp/mysql.sock
+mysqli.default_socket =

 ; Default host for mysql_connect() (doesn't apply in safe mode).
 ; http://php.net/mysqli.default-host
@@ -1224,7 +1221,7 @@
 ; Enable / Disable collection of memory usage statistics by mysqlnd which can be
 ; used to tune and monitor MySQL operations.
 ; http://php.net/mysqlnd.collect_memory_statistics
-mysqlnd.collect_memory_statistics = Off
+mysqlnd.collect_memory_statistics = On

 ; Size of a pre-allocated buffer used when sending commands to MySQL in bytes.
 ; http://php.net/mysqlnd.net_cmd_buffer_size
@@ -1477,7 +1474,7 @@
 ;       collection through a shell script, cron entry, or some other method.
 ;       For example, the following script would is the equivalent of
 ;       setting session.gc_maxlifetime to 1440 (1440 seconds = 24 minutes):
-;          find /path/to/sessions -cmin +24 | xargs rm
+;          find /path/to/sessions -cmin +24 -type f | xargs rm

 ; PHP 4.2 and less have an undocumented feature/bug that allows you to
 ; to initialize a session variable in the global scope.
@@ -1493,7 +1490,7 @@
 ; Development Value: On
 ; Production Value: Off
 ; http://php.net/session.bug-compat-42
-session.bug_compat_42 = Off
+session.bug_compat_42 = On

 ; This setting controls whether or not you are warned by PHP when initializing a
 ; session value into the global space. session.bug_compat_42 must be enabled before
@@ -1502,7 +1499,7 @@
 ; Development Value: On
 ; Production Value: Off
 ; http://php.net/session.bug-compat-warn
-session.bug_compat_warn = Off
+session.bug_compat_warn = On

 ; Check HTTP Referer to invalidate externally stored URLs containing ids.
 ; HTTP_REFERER has to contain this substring for the session to be
@@ -1859,6 +1856,11 @@
 [dba]
 ;dba.default_handler=

+[curl]
+; A default value for the CURLOPT_CAINFO option. This is required to be an
+; absolute path.
+;curl.cainfo =
+
 ; Local Variables:
 ; tab-width: 4
 ; End: