How to Install PHP Composer on Ubuntu Linux

This article explains how to install PHP Composer on Ubuntu Linux.

PHP Composer is a package dependency management tool for PHP used by developers to manage their PHP-based projects/applications.

If you are a developer working on PHP-based projects/applications, you would want to install PHP Composer on Ubuntu Linux. PHP Composer is a package dependency management tool that makes it easier to install and manage packages required by dynamic PHP applications.

With Composer, you can easily maintain a list of required packages in a JSON file called composer.json and install/update them with a single command.

Installing PHP Composer on Ubuntu Linux allows you to streamline your PHP development workflow and improve your productivity.

Install PHP

Composer requires PHP 5.3 or higher. To install PHP on Ubuntu, run the commands below

sudo apt install php

If you need to install other PHP versions unavailable in Ubuntu default repositories for your system, run the commands below to install a third-party repository containing PHP 7.0, 7.1, 7.2, and up.

sudo apt-get install python-software-properties
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php
sudo apt update

Now run the commands below to install PHP 7.2. change the number value to install 7.1, 7.3, and so forth.

sudo apt install php7.2

Install Composer

Now that PHP is installed. You can now run the commands below to install Composer

curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | sudo php -- --install-dir=/usr/local/bin --filename=composer

The commands above will download Composer from its maintainer page and install it into the /usr/local/bin directory. This is a local-global directory for application executables.

All settings correct for using Composer
Downloading.

Composer (version 1.6.4) successfully installed to: /usr/local/bin/composer
Use it: php /usr/local/bin/composer

Now run the commands below to test whether Composer is installed.

composer

The output should look like something below.

richard@ubuntu1804:~$ composer
   ______
  / ____/___  ____ ___  ____  ____  ________  _____
 / /   / __ / __ `__ / __ / __ / ___/ _ / ___/
/ /___/ /_/ / / / / / / /_/ / /_/ (__  )  __/ /
____/____/_/ /_/ /_/ .___/____/____/___/_/
                    /_/
Composer version 1.6.4 2018-04-13 12:04:24

Usage:
  command [options] [arguments]

Options:
  -h, --help                     Display this help message
  -q, --quiet                    Do not output any message
  -V, --version                  Display this application version
      --ansi                     Force ANSI output
      --no-ansi                  Disable ANSI output
  -n, --no-interaction           Do not ask any interactive question

When you want to install a PHP-based application that requires Composer, reference this page to learn how to install Composer. After that, continue with getting your PHP application on Ubuntu.

The Composer can also be upgraded by running the commands below. This will upgrade all packages associated with Composer.

sudo composer self-update

That’s it!

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Frequently Asked Questions