How to change PHP version used by composer - php

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?

Answer 1

You can change php version of composer without uninstalling it, follow these steps :
Search for system environment variables in cortana.
Click on the button "Environment variables".
Under "System variables" select path and click on edit, you will see one entry like this "C:\wamp\bin\php\php5.6.13".
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.
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.
You are done.
To verify, first close all the cmd windows, than open cmd and type php -v, press enter and you should see php7.1.9.
If you don't see change in php version than just restart your pc and run php -v again in cmd , it will work.

Answer 2

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

Answer 3

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.

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:

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"}.

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

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

Answer 8

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.

Answer 9

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:
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.
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

Answer 10

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".

Answer 11

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.

Answer 12

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.

Answer 13

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 php#7.4 you only need to run: composer7.4 install

Answer 14

Came here by the title, but the question specifies WAMP; which this may not easily apply to. So, in my case - using a Mac.. so more like a MAMP - if you have brew and the below versions installed, this could help - and composer picks it up.
brew link --overwrite --force php#8.1
php -v
#PHP 8.1...
brew link --overwrite --force php#7.4
php -v
#PHP 7.4...