How to change PHP version used by composer

Question

I want to use another php version on my machine than the one already installed using WAMP (2 PHP version installed).

• The composer installed uses PHP 5.6
• A new project requires PHP7.0.

Whenever I choose PHP 7 from the control panel of WAMP and then run php -v it still printing PHP5.6 (CLI)... instead of PHP7.

How can I use PHP7 without reinstalling the composer again?

Virgy

Why is there not a single linux answer? :( – Legofmutton

I'm assuming because the OP specified WAMP... – Riarial

@Tofandel. The OP (Original Poster) reference WAMP, which stands for Windows, Apache, MySQL and PHP. If you need a LAMP solution (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP) then you would need to reference your chosen LAMP software documentation and any associated workaround(s). – Wersh

Answer 1

You can change php version of composer without uninstalling it, follow these steps :

1. Search for system environment variables in cortana.
2. Click on the button "Environment variables".
3. Under "System variables" select path and click on edit, you will see one entry like this "C:\wamp\bin\php\php5.6.13".
4. Just change this to the folder name of the php located at your wamp/bin/php7.1.9, here php7.1.9 is folder name.
5. Replace php5.6.13 with bin7.1.9, it will look like these "C:\wamp\bin\php\php7.1.9", just click ok on all the boxes.
6. You are done.
7. To verify, first close all the cmd windows, than open cmd and type php -v, press enter and you should see php7.1.9.
8. If you don't see change in php version than just restart your pc and run php -v again in cmd , it will work.

Gauldin

this works BUT the wamp server says it has an error and that it has detected a change in environment variables. – Commute

If wamp server shows error about change detection in environment variables I suggest you to restart server. If it does not solve than shutoff server and than start it again. If that also does not work than I suggest you to restart your pc. Hope it helps :) – Gauldin

Regarding step 3, for me it was under "User variables" not "System variables". But everything else worked 😄 – Bedchamber

You can use multiple php version like #15618015 and then you just need to change move up version as per your requirement – Oidium

Answer 2

If anyone is still having trouble, remember you can run composer with any php version that you have installed e.g. $ php7.3 -f /usr/local/bin/composer update

Use which composer command to help locate the composer executable.

Junette

harder to understand your reply. how can I use in windows environment? – Dissimilar

Answer 3

I'm assuming Windows if you're using WAMP. Composer likely is just using the PHP set in your path: How to access PHP with the Command Line on Windows?

You should be able to change the path to PHP using the same instructions.

Otherwise, composer is just a PHAR file, you can download the PHAR and execute it using any PHP:

C:\full\path\to\php.exe C:\full\path\to\composer.phar install

Halothane

What is the use of this line C:\full\path\to\php.exe C:\full\path\to\composer.phar install . I already have the composer.phar file since I'm already using composer in my current project – Virgy

Composer phar example is golden! Finnaly got it working, no need of endless enviroment variables switching. Tnx much! – Relationship

For Linux/MacOS users, would be something like: /Applications/MAMP/bin/php/php7.2.14/bin/php /usr/local/bin/composer install – Mortie

Answer 4

I found a very easy way to switch php versions:

• Search for system environment variable
• Click on "Environment variables"
• Under "System variables" select path and click on edit
• Move the PHP version folder you want to use before the other one. So for example: php 7.0 will now be used:

• Close all windows by clicking "OK"
• Close all the cmd windows, than open cmd and type php -v
• You will see the correct php version loaded now:

Boadicea

Isn't this the same answer given by geeky more than three years ago? – Wayworn

geeky talks about changing folder names, but I found that just changing the order of the folders is enough, since you maybe want to change back. This makes it much simpeler and better managable in my opinion. – Boadicea

After you change your environment variables, execute the “refreshenv” command. - You must have the Chocolatey package Installed. - The environment variables will be refreshed immediately, without the need to restart the computer, or sign out and without disrupting the workflow. – Lapointe

Answer 5

Another possibility to make composer think you're using the correct version of PHP is to add to the config section of a composer.json file a platform option, like this:

"config": {
    "platform": {
        "php": "<ver>"
    }
},

Where <ver> is the PHP version of your choice.

Snippet from the docs:

Lets you fake platform packages (PHP and extensions) so that you can emulate a production env or define your target platform in the config. Example: {"php": "7.0.3", "ext-something": "4.0.3"}.

Monitory

Perfect!. It works with drupal composer.json. Thanks @Furai. – Sitology

It worked for me but getting issue on composer dump-autoload – Cowey

@JayMomaya you can try adding --ignore-platform-reqs option to your command. – Monitory

Answer 6

This is what happens in my case. I hope this may help to someone have same situation. I'm using macOS Monterey with MAMP.

I linked the php 7.4 using ~/.profile file. So the terminal it says I'm using php 7.4. However, still my composer giving an error saying i'm using php 7.3.

So I check the php path using

which php

This gives me the /usr/local/bin/php as my php cli location. So I remove the file and made a symlink to my php7.4 and now working perfectly.

sudo rm -rf /usr/local/bin/php
sudo ln -s /Applications/MAMP/bin/php/php7.4.21/bin/php /usr/local/bin/php

Credenza

Answer 7

I found out that composer runs with the php-version /usr/bin/env finds first in $PATH, which is 7.1.33 in my case on MacOs. So shifting mamp's php to the beginning helped me here.

PHPVER=$(/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "print phpVersion" ~/Library/Preferences/de.appsolute.mamppro.plist)

export PATH=/Applications/MAMP/bin/php/php${PHPVER}/bin:$PATH

Compton

Answer 8

I use two xampp installations: with PHP 7.4 and 8.1. The system "Path" environment variable is set to C:\xampp\xampp8.1\php\, so the PHP 8.1 is the default PHP version in the Windows console.

RUN:

php -v
PHP 8.1.6 (cli) (built: May 11 2022 08:55:59) (ZTS Visual C++ 2019 x64)

PHP 7.4 is installed in C:\xampp\xampp7.4\php\php.exe.

RUN:

C:\xampp\xampp7.4\php\php.exe -v
PHP 7.4.2 (cli) (built: Jan 21 2020 17:52:43) ( ZTS Visual C++ 2017 x64 )

Composer.phar file is located in c:\ProgramData\ComposerSetup\bin\composer.phar.

So we can run the following:

C:\xampp\xampp7.4\php\php.exe c:\ProgramData\ComposerSetup\bin\composer.phar 

To simplify create aliases:

composer74=d:\xampp\xampp7.4\php\php.exe c:\ProgramData\ComposerSetup\bin\composer.phar

php74=d:\xampp\xampp7.4\php\php.exe

I user Cmder console, where aliases are located in c:\Program Files\Cmder\config\user_aliases.cmd.

Fermanagh

Answer 9

Old question I know, but just to add some additional information:

• WAMP is used only on Microsoft Windows Operating Systems.
• Changing the version of PHP used through the left-click -> PHP -> Version menu changes the version used by Apache to server your site.
• Changing the version of PHP used through the right-click -> Tools -> Change PHP CLI Version menu changes the version used by WAMP's PHP CLI.

Note: It is important to understand that the "PHP CLI Version" is used by WAMP's own internal PHP scripts. This "PHP CLI Version" has nothing to do with the version you wish to use for your scripts, Composer or anything else.

For your scripts to work with the version you require, you need to add it's path to the Users Environmental Path. You could add it to the Systems environmental Path but the Users Path is the recommended option.

From WAMP v3.1.2, it would display an error when it detect reference to a PHP path in the System or User Environmental Path. This was to stop confusion such as you were experiencing. Since v3.1.7 the display of this error can now be optionally displayed through a selection in the WampSettings menu.

As indicated in previous answers, adding an installed PHP path (such as "C:\wamp64\bin\php\php7.2.30") to the Users Environmental Path is the correct approach. PS: As the value of the Users Environmental Path is a string, all paths added must be separated with a semi-colon (;)

After experiencing the exact same problem (IE: Choosing which version of PHP I wanted Composer to use), I created a script which could easily and rapidly switch between PHP CLI Versions depending on what project I was working on.

The Windows batch script "WampServer-PHP-CLI-Version-Changer" can be found at https://github.com/custom-dev-tools/WampServer-PHP-CLI-Version-Changer

I hope this helps others.

Good luck.

Wersh

Answer 10

After a long search on the internet and finding many unrelated answers / ones that did not work for me, Here is what worked for me. Those who are in shared hosting know that bin directory is write-protected and running sudo commands or any system-wide command is not allowed.

There's two ways of solving this:

1. Run the command directly on your project folder selecting the appropriate PHP version you need. ea-php80 /opt/cpanel/composer/bin/composer update To get available PHP on your server type ea-php and hit TAB to see a list.
2. make an alias to composer

• Run this command to edit/make this file nano ~/.bashrc
• Inside that file, put alias composer="ea-php80 /opt/cpanel/composer/bin/composer"
• This gives you the flexibility to run composer commands as usual without those long trailing strings

Dialogism

Answer 11

How to change PHP version dynamically in windows (Powershell)

Consider we have "C:\php" directory which includes 3 sub-directories for 3 version of php: "C:\php\56" , "C:\php\74" and "C:\php\81".

1. Open PowerShell as an administrator.
2. Run notepad $PROFILE command to open your PowerShell profile in Notepad.

If you don't have a PowerShell profile yet, this command will create a new one for you.

3. Add the following lines to your PowerShell profile:

$phpVersionsPath = "C:\php"

function Set-PHPVersion {
    param([string]$version)
    $phpPath = Join-Path $phpVersionsPath $version
    $env:PATH = "$phpPath;{0}" -f $env:PATH
    $output = Invoke-Expression 'php -v'
    Write-Output $output
}

You can use shorter function name for easier execution. Something like spv

4. Save and close your PowerShell profile.
5. Restart PowerShell to load the updated profile.

After following these steps, you should be able to use the Set-PHPVersion function from any PowerShell session, regardless of the current working directory.

Run Set-PHPVersion 56 , Set-PHPVersion 74 or Set-PHPVersion 81 to use the version you want.

Sheeran

Answer 12

If you are using Windows, all you have to do is change the path to php.exe in the composer.bat file located in: "C:\ProgramData\ComposerSetup\bin".

Seabolt

Answer 13

In my case I include paths to all php versions, whenever I need to run a project on a specific php version, I just move the required path to the top (using these buttons in the right) and then close all the terminals and restart my wampp server. The path with listing in the will be selected as your php version by windows This is the simplest solution I think.

Ambrosia

Answer 14

In Windows if you change the Environment Variables. You should close the current windows on which you will use composer, because will remains the old environment variables values

Uniliteral

Answer 15

If you still facing the problem after changing Environment variables in windows, try to delete directory or just rename directory of your old php. I've done it and it's work.

Hess

Answer 16

I will assume that you need this because a requirement to have multiple php versions installed to handle multiple projects.

If this is the case a prefer to run directly the php desired bin pointing to the executable script of composer, for example, in my case I have php 8.1 and 7.4, my main php version configured for CLI is 8.1, but I want to run composer with 7.4 in some projects, so I run this command:

php7.4 -f /usr/local/bin/composer install

Where php7.4 is the bin installed and my global composer script is in /usr/local/bin/composer

From there, you can make an alias like this to facilitate things: alias composer7.4='php7.4 -f /usr/local/bin/composer ' so next time you need to run composer with [email protected] you only need to run: composer7.4 install

Aright

Please don't duplicate existing answers, unless you want to share new insights. If this is the case, and I haven't noticed the new insights in your answer, please highlight them – Wayworn