Composer helps in managing dependencies in PHP. You can declare the libraries your project depends on, and it helps in managing (install/update) them for you. Composer isn’t a package manager similar to Yum or Apt. It works with ‘packages’ or libraries, but manages them on a per-project basis, installing them in a directory (e.g., vendor) within your project. Nothing will be installed globally by default. Composer enables you to manage dependencies for each project independently. Hence, it is a dependency manager.
Installing composer
To install composer, follow these steps:
- SSH access should be enabled for your hosting account with us.
- To access your account via SSH, download and install one of the available SSH clients.(like puTTy/Xshell) You can find the list of free SSH clients here or For a cPanel account you can access shell access via ADVANCED >> Terminal
- Composer requires PHP 5.5+ version, so we need to check whether the needed version is set up. Type the php -v command in PuTTY (or in Terminal) and you will get the following output
- If you need to change PHP version, log in to your cPanel, navigate to the Software and Services section >> Select PHP Version menu. For more details refer to the link: https://www.veerotech.net/kb/php-version-selector-change-php-version/
PLEASE NOTE: Composer requires allow_url_fopen. It is enabled by default for all PHP versions on our Shared servers. Still, you may check if it is On by going to ‘Options’ Settings in the Select PHP version menu.
- Next, navigate to the folder you want to install Composer in. In our example, we will install Composer in the ‘newdomain.com‘ folder.
cd newdomain.com - When all the preparations are done, you are ready to install Composer. Open the PuTTY window/terminal where you have logged into your cPanel account and fill in the following command.
php -r “readfile(‘https://getcomposer.org/installer’);” | php -c php.ini
or to download the composer installer, type the following commands.
cd newdomain.com
curl -k -O https://getcomposer.org/installerTo install composer, type the following command.php -d allow_url_fopen=On installerThis will execute the Composer installation - To confirm the composer is installed correctly, type the following command.
php composer.phar -V The composer should display the version number. - To update the composer installation to the newest version in the future, type the following command:
php composer.phar self-update -
To run composer commands use:
php composer.pharIn case you get a notification Some settings on your machine make Composer unable to work properly, make sure that the PHP version is 5.5 or higher.
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