composer/doc/03-cli.md

Command-line interface

You've already learned how to use the command-line interface to do some things. This chapter documents all the available commands.

init

In the [Libraries] chapter we looked at how to create a composer.json by hand. There is also an init command available that makes it a bit easier to do this.

When you run the command it will interactively ask you to fill in the fields, while using some smart defaults.

$ php composer.phar init

install

The install command reads the composer.json file from the current directory, resolves the dependencies, and installs them into vendor.

$ php composer.phar install

If there is a composer.lock file in the current directory, it will use the exact versions from there instead of resolving them. This ensures that everyone using the library will get the same versions of the dependencies.

If there is no composer.lock file, composer will create one after dependency resolution.

Options

• --prefer-source: There are two ways of downloading a package: source and dist. For stable versions composer will use the dist by default. The source is a version control repository. If --prefer-source is enabled, composer will install from source if there is one. This is useful if you want to make a bugfix to a project and get a local git clone of the dependency directly.
• --dry-run: If you want to run through an installation without actually installing a package, you can use --dry-run. This will simulate the installation and show you what would happen.
• --no-install-recommends: By default composer will install all packages that are referenced by recommend. By passing this option you can disable that.
• --install-suggests: The packages referenced by suggest will not be installed by default. By passing this option, you can install them.

update

In order to get the latest versions of the dependencies and to update the composer.lock file, you should use the update command.

$ php composer.phar update

This will resolve all dependencies of the project and write the exact versions into composer.lock.

Options

• --prefer-source: Install packages from source when available.
• --dry-run: Simulate the command without actually doing anything.
• --no-install-recommends: Do not install packages referenced by recommend.
• --install-suggests: Install packages referenced by suggest.

search

The search command allows you to search through the current project's package repositories. Usually this will be just packagist. You simply pass it the terms you want to search for.

$ php composer.phar search monolog

You can also search for more than one term by passing multiple arguments.

show

To list all of the available packages, you can use the show command.

$ php composer.phar show

If you want to see the details of a certain package, you can pass the package name.

$ php composer.phar show monolog/monolog

name     : monolog/monolog
versions : master-dev, 1.0.2, 1.0.1, 1.0.0, 1.0.0-RC1
type     : library
names    : monolog/monolog
source   : [git] http://github.com/Seldaek/monolog.git 3d4e60d0cbc4b888fe5ad223d77964428b1978da
dist     : [zip] http://github.com/Seldaek/monolog/zipball/3d4e60d0cbc4b888fe5ad223d77964428b1978da 3d4e60d0cbc4b888fe5ad223d77964428b1978da
license  : MIT

autoload
psr-0
Monolog : src/

requires
php >=5.3.0

You can even pass the package version, which will tell you the details of that specific version.

$ php composer.phar show monolog/monolog 1.0.2

Options

• --installed: Will list the packages that are installed.
• --platform: Will list only [Platform packages].

depends

The depends command tells you which other packages depend on a certain package. You can specify which link types (require, recommend, suggest) should be included in the listing.

$ php composer.phar depends --link-type=require monolog/monolog

nrk/monolog-fluent
poc/poc
propel/propel
symfony/monolog-bridge
symfony/symfony

Options

• --link-type: The link types to match on, can be specified multiple times.

validate

You should always run the validate command before you commit your composer.json file, and before you tag a release. It will check if your composer.json is valid.

$ php composer.phar validate

self-update

To update composer itself to the latest version, just run the self-update command. It will replace your composer.phar with the latest version.

$ php composer.phar self-update

help

To get more information about a certain command, just use help.

$ php composer.phar help install

Environment variables

You can set a number of environment variables that override certain settings. Whenever possible it is recommended to specify these settings in the config section of composer.json instead. It is worth noting that that the env vars will always take precedence over the values specified in composer.json.

COMPOSER

By setting the COMPOSER env variable is is possible to set the filename of composer.json to something else.

For example:

$ COMPOSER=composer-other.json php composer.phar install

COMPOSER_VENDOR_DIR

By setting this option you can make composer install the dependencies into a directory other than vendor.

COMPOSER_BIN_DIR

By setting this option you can change the bin ([articles/vendor-bins.md]) directory to something other than vendor/bin.

COMPOSER_PROCESS_TIMEOUT

This env var controls the time composer waits for commands (such as git commands) to finish executing. The default value is 60 seconds.