Composer (software)

Last updated
Composer.
Developer(s) Nils Adermann,
Jordi Boggiano
Initial releaseMarch 1, 2012;13 years ago (2012-03-01) [1]
Stable release
2.8.11 [2]   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg / 21 August 2025;24 days ago (21 August 2025)
Repository
Written in PHP
Operating system Cross-platform
Type Package manager
License MIT License
Website getcomposer.org

Composer is an application-level dependency manager for the PHP programming language that provides a standard format for managing dependencies of PHP software and required libraries. It was developed by Nils Adermann and Jordi Boggiano, who continue to manage the project. They began development in April 2011 and first released it on March 1, 2012. [1] Composer is strongly inspired by Node.js's "npm" and Ruby's "bundler". [3] The project's dependency solving algorithm started out as a PHP-based port of openSUSE's libzypp SAT solver. [4]

Contents

Composer runs from the command line and installs dependencies (e.g. libraries) for an application. It also allows users to install PHP applications that are available on "Packagist" [5] which is its main repository containing available packages. It also provides autoload capabilities for libraries that specify autoload information to ease usage of third-party code.

Syntax

Commands

Composer offers several parameters including : [6]

Libraries definition

Example of composer.json generated by the following command:

composer require monolog/monolog
{"require":{"monolog/monolog":"1.2.*"}}

Versions

The different authorized versions of the libraries are defined by: [7]

SymbolRole (placed before a version number)Example
>=allows to extend the number. Moreover, we can use: >, <, <=."php": ">=5.5.9" includes PHP 7.
!=excludes a version.
-defines a range of versions.
*extends to all subversions."symfony/symfony": "3.1.*" includes the 3.1.1.
~extends to the next versions of the same level."doctrine/orm": "~2.5" also concerns the 2.6, but neither the 2.4 nor the 3.0.
^same as tilde, only if there is a backward compatibility.

Supported frameworks

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Software release, github.com, Retrieved April 24, 2016.
  2. ↑ "Release 2.8.11". 21 August 2025. Retrieved 12 September 2025.
  3. ↑ Getting Started/Dependency management, getcomposer.org, Retrieved November 28, 2013.
  4. ↑ "composer/composer". Jun 23, 2020. Retrieved Jun 24, 2020– via GitHub.
  5. ↑ See packagist.org
  6. ↑ "Command-line interface / Commands". getcomposer.org.
  7. ↑ "Versions and constraints - Composer". getcomposer.org.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.