Tell Composer to use Different PHP Version - php

Question

I've been stuck at this for a few days. I'm using 1and1 hosting, and they have their PHP set up a bit weird.
If I use just php composer.phar install, then I'm using PHP 4.4.6, which is horribly insufficient. However, I can run php5.5 composer.phar install, get a little bit further, but it still fails because somewhere along the line, PHP is called again, but it fails, as it's using 4.4.6.
Is there any way to tell Composer to use the php5.5 command? Has anyone successfully gotten Composer configured on 1and1 hosting?
I'm trying to get Laravel up and running (which uses Composer). I've been able to do it on my GoDaddy domain, but not 1and1.

Answer 1

Ubuntu 18.04 case ... this run for me.
/usr/bin/php7.1 /usr/local/bin/composer update

Answer 2

Maybe this can't solve exactly your issue but probably it will help others who comes here from web search.
Just run the command to add below code to your composer.json file to set different PHP version:
$ composer config platform.php 8.0.7
"config": {
"platform": {
"php": "8.0.7"
}
}

Answer 3

On xubuntu I had php 7.2 as default. But needed to run composer with php 5.6.
So this worked for me:
php5.6 /usr/bin/composer

Answer 4

You always can use that way.
In project folder where you has composer.json file. Run the command
php7.4 /usr/local/bin/composer install
or
php7.4 /usr/local/bin/composer update
where php7.4 your specific version can be(php7.0, php5.5, php7.3 etc...)
where /usr/local/bin/composer path for system folder with composer
!!! you should have php7.4-cli
sudo apt-get install -y php7.4-cli
That way for linux/ubuntu user
Cheers ;-)

Answer 5

If you just need to get composer to ignore the version requirements, you can bypass using:
composer install --ignore-platform-reqs

Answer 6

composer is a PHP binary script and it's using Unix Shebang to define which interpreter for executing.
root#home:~# head /usr/local/bin/composer -n 5
#!/usr/bin/env php
<?php
/*
* This file is part of Composer.
*
/usr/bin/php7.1 /usr/local/bin/composer update
So if you're running composer without any specific option, it will use your PHP version at /usr/bin/env php (which is your default PHP)
We can have many versions of PHP inside your Linux and you can flexible use which PHP version for executing as you want like this way:
root#home:~# /usr/bin/php7.1 /usr/local/bin/composer update
Or just
root#home:~# php7.1 /usr/local/bin/composer
root#home:~# php7.2 /usr/local/bin/composer
root#home:~# php7.3 composer
...
To check & find all installed PHP packages, goto /usr/bin/
root#home:~# ls /usr/bin/ | grep php
php
php5.6
php7.1
php7.2
php7.3
php-config
php-config7.1
phpdbg
phpdbg5.6
phpize
phpize7.1

Answer 7

I too have a shared hosting account on 1&1 (ionos) and here's what I have had to do:
if you login as the root ssh account, you can create a ~/.bash_profile and add
alias php="php7.1"
alias composer="php7.1 composer.phar"
to it so that you can now use the commands you would normally use and it just works. (put composer.phar in your project folder root)
Then, make sure your laravel composer.lock file from your dev machine gets up to your project folder on 1and1 and run
composer install
Using this tip from #tobymackenzie: on shared hosts you really should just run composer install (not update!) from a composer.lock file you created on your own machine. That way the memory usage remains very low.
I still had STDIN issues with artisan commands so make sure you change the .env file to
APP_ENV=local
because having it set to production throws infinite STDIN warnings as it waits for you to type yes. At least on my account it does.
Hope this helps somebody.

Answer 8

In my case, Composer detected PHP version 7.2.6 but my actual PHP Version was 8.0.2 .So , I did the following steps and It was the solution for me.
Step 01:- Add below code to your composer.json file
"config": {
"platform": {
"php": "7.2.6"
}
}
Step 02:- Then, run the below command.
C:\xampp\htdocs\your project name>composer update

Answer 9

Try this approach
ea-php72 /opt/cpanel/composer/bin/composer

Answer 10

The existing answers partly do not answer the question, give suggestions that do not work or give bad advice.
The question stated:
However, I can run php5.5 composer.phar install, get a little bit further, but it still fails because somewhere along the line, PHP is called again, but it fails, as it's using 4.4.6.
Instead, I am here showing a way to test and verify the suggestions.
I wish I had a better answer myself but I am unsure what is the best solution. Personally I would go with a solution which make sure PHP is called with the correct version on the host (e.g. via an alias or setting the PHP environment correctly, running the entire operation inside a container or some other solution), regardless of Composer and add a platform php constraint.
If you don't run any scripts and just need the requirements to resolve the dependencies correctly config:platform:php would probably be your friend.
Let's say our default php version is 7.4 but our project requires 7.2.
Check your default PHP version
command line:
# shows version of default PHP
php --version
# show path of default PHP
which php
# show version of /usr/bin/env php
# /usr/bin/env php --version
Create a test script in your composer.json
"scripts": {
"php-version": "php --version"
}
Now you can test what version of PHP is used for the commands Composer
calls, e.g.
composer php-version
/usr/bin/php7.2 /usr/bin/composer php-version
In my case, both of these use my default php script (which is version
7.4). So, while the 7.2 version is used to run Composer, the scripts
called by Composer use the default command (unless you use #php instead of php1).
Now let's add the platform setting as suggested in some of the answers
"config": {
"platform": {
"php": "7.2.0"
}
}
Does not change anything for the script execution:
/usr/bin/php7.2 /usr/bin/composer php-version
# result is still 7.4
Actually, what the platform option is important for is resolving the requirements, so you should add it (in your project composer.json). It just won't solve the above problem of composer using PHP with the correct version. See also Composer docs for platform.
If you use #php instead of php, then Composer uses the PHP_BINARY2 path which is the php binary path that Composer tried to infer being executed with. See Executing PHP scripts. In this example commonly $(command -v php7.4) different to $(command -v php7.2), here $(command -v php).
PHP_BINARY is an environment variable Composer sets for its own environment (ref), similar to the predefined PHP_BINARY constant in PHP.

Answer 11

I had the same issue and this is how I was able to figure out how to run composer using a different PHP version on a shared hosting without breaking the system :)
Luckily, solving this issue with composer using different PHP version is dead simple.
Findings:
Default PHP was not run from /usr/local/bin or similar folder. Using the
which php
or
whereis php
would not give you the best answer.
Follow the short guide below:
First find the actual path to your composer binary itself.
On my shared hosting server, it was at
/opt/cpanel/composer/bin/composer
I believe most hosting providers using cPanel would have such path to composer.
Next, create an alias to the PHP version you want to use.
In my project, I needed php 7.4 or newer.
As mentioned earlier, the host was using cPanel and the actual default PHP version that the server uses is in the path /opt/cpanel/
You should see different versions of php in the /opt/cpanel/ (prefixed by ea-phpxx) for example, for php 7.4, it would be a folder called ea-php74 and for PHP 8.0, it would be a folder called ea-php80.
Now, be sure that php exists in a path similar to this:
/opt/cpanel/ea-php80/root/usr/bin
If you find php in the folder, then you can now alias it as folows:
alias php='/opt/cpanel/ea-php80/root/usr/bin/php'
Test that the alias is working by running
php --version
and check the php version as shown in the screenshot below:
Now, run composer as normal. For example
php /opt/cpanel/composer/bin/composer update
php /opt/cpanel/composer/bin/composer install
php /opt/cpanel/composer/bin/composer install
Remember how we found the composer binary at /opt/cpanel/composer/bin/composer. If this does not match the path to the compser binary on your server, use the appropriate one.
I hope this helps.
Happy Coding!

Answer 12

You could change your PATH to override the php version.
PATH="/home/user/bin:$PATH"
In /home/user/bin (or any other directory really) make a symlink named php to the php5 binary.
Another option, use a shell alias:
alias php="/path/to/php5"

Answer 13

I'm on a Hostgator shared account, the following worked for me:
First, find out where your desired version of PHP lives (you can start typing ea-php and hit TAB to list all available executables starting with ea-php):
which ea-php73
/usr/local/bin/ea-php73
Then, find out where composer lives:
which composer
/opt/cpanel/composer/bin/composer
Then use those to run your composer command:
/usr/local/bin/ea-php73 /opt/cpanel/composer/bin/composer install

Answer 14

For people using Plesk, you need the different pieces:
Get the PHP version required from /opt/plesk/php/<version/bin/php, eg /opt/plesk/php/7.4/bin/php
Get the real path of composer since /usr/local/bin/composer is a custom Plesk script by vieweing the script contents ( cat /usr/local/bin/composer ). In my case, it was /usr/local/psa/var/modules/composer/composer.phar
Put it all together:
# /opt/plesk/php/7.4/bin/php /usr/local/psa/var/modules/composer/composer.phar install
... or to make it simpler, just create a new file ( I like composer74 ) in /usr/local/bin:
cat > /usr/local/bin/composer74 to create the file
paste the following:
#!/bin/bash
/opt/plesk/php/7.4/bin/php /usr/local/psa/var/modules/composer/composer.phar
insto the terminal
Hit CTRL+D to save the file
chmod +x /usr/local/bin/composer74 to make it executable
Use it anywhere:
# composer74 install

Answer 15

Know this question is a bit old... but if you pull down composer into your app root:
https://getcomposer.org/download/
Instead of relying on global composer, then you can run:
php56 composer.phar {your command}
or I believe newer homstead versions would be like:
php7.1 composer.phar {your command}
https://laracasts.com/discuss/channels/laravel/run-composer-commands-with-different-php-versions

Answer 16

Ubuntu 18.04 case ... this works for me. Here, Composer picks the required PHP version automatically.
/opt/lampp/bin/php /usr/bin/composer install
OR
/opt/lampp/bin/php /usr/bin/composer update

Answer 17

php5.5 composer.phar install fails because your composer.json is telling it to run php and not php5.5, edit the file composer.json replace the php scripts references to php5.5. Example:
From:
"post-root-package-install": [
"php -r \"copy('.env.example', '.env');\""
],
To:
"post-root-package-install": [
"php5.5 -r \"copy('.env.example', '.env');\""
],
Even when doing this, 1and1 has a memory limit for scripts execution so php5.5 composer.phar install won't fail but it won't complete its execution either. You can still run the scripts post install manually.
I have deployed Laravel webapps to 1and1 without commit vendor directory, following this guide: Deploy Laravel Webapp to 1and1

Answer 18

I had no luck with any of above answers, I had auto scripts in composer.json so just ignoring or faking platforms just caused failed scripts etc. Setting php version in command just didn't work!
I did notice however that although running which php and php -v returned correct version which /usr/bin/env php returned the problematic version of php that composer was using. So found a very good answer here and outlined below:
Issue:
/usr/bin/env php looks for an executable named php in the current $PATH; it pays no attention to aliases, shell functions, etc. If you want it to execute php v5.3, you have to put that version in a directory under the name php, and put that directory in your PATH somewhere before the directory that contains the problematic version.
Fix:
Create new php executable folder like below with your specific php executable linked inside:
mkdir /usr/local/bin/php-overrides
ln -s /usr/local/bin/php7 /usr/local/bin/php-overrides/php
Add below to your ~/.bash_profile (or other appropriate startup script):
PATH="/usr/local/bin/php-overrides:$PATH"
https://serverfault.com/questions/579956/alias-doesnt-work-in-script-with-usr-bin-env-php

Answer 19

There are two ways to do it.
Tell the composer to ignore the platform requirements while running the command in the terminal.
composer update --ignore-platform-reqs
Tell the composer to ignore the platform requirements in the composer.json file in the project root directory.
"config": {
"platform-check": false,
},

Answer 20

We can tell Composer, what version of PHP we are supporting with our app by using the platform configuration in our composer.json file by adding the following configuration,
{
"config": {
"platform": {
"php": "5.5"
}
},
"require": {
...
}
}
Or from the command-line
composer config platform.php 5.5

Answer 21

i have a method to slove this problem.
export PATH=/usr/local/Cellar/php/8.0.12/bin:$PATH && composer -vvv
Temporarily change environment variables and use composer

Answer 22

With PHP 8 and 8.1 coming out, I have to work with a couple of versions regularly in the CLI, and the best way I found to do this was to create an alias.
Assuming you installed using brew, or already know where your version of PHP is.
Add the following to your bash profile.
alias php7='/usr/local/opt/php#7.4/bin/php'
alias php8='/usr/local/opt/php#8.0/bin/php'
If you want you can install PHP 8.1 as well with brew install php#8.1 and add another alias.
This will allow you to run php8 composer, you can do a quick test by creating an index.php file and adding phpinfo() to it.
php7 index.php | grep "PHP Version"
php8 index.php | grep "PHP Version"

Answer 23

While trying to install a Laravel application on my SiteGround shared hosting using SSH, I had to specify the adequate PHP bin constant prior to executing composer :
PHP_BIN=php81 composer install
Other solutions here would not work.

Answer 24

Must add in two places in your composer.json file to set different php version:
"config": {
"platform": {
"php": "7.4"
}
}
"require": {
"php": "^7.4",
}

Answer 25

You could try and copy the php and php-config files into /usr/local/bin instead. That path has a higher order of precedence and should override the /usr/bin folder without needing to disable SIP. That is what I did.

Answer 26

On AlmaLinux with php74 my default PHP version, php81 installed to /usr/bin/php81 and composer in location /usr/bin/composer, the following works one time: running composer using php81.
/usr/bin/php81 /usr/bin/composer install
Composer flags can be added as following:
/usr/bin/php81 /usr/bin/composer install --no-dev --no-interaction --ignore-platform-reqs
Notice these commands need to be executed from you working folder.