Programming
We have quite a few ways to install different versions of PHP in a local development environment. As a developer, we need all those versions to serve different projects. Recently I tried setting up Laravel Valet on my Mac. So this is all about setting and using different PHP versions with valet.
Well, all this is already available in the official laravel documentation. I am only adding my installation experience here.
HomeBrew makes it easy to install php and MySQL on Mac. It is as simple as
brew install mysql
brew install php
This of course installs the latest version of php ( current is 7.4.x )
To install earlier versions,
brew install [email protected]
brew install [email protected]
That was pretty simple. Then I tried installing php 7.1 the same way but it failed. After a few google searches, I found that Homebrew doesn’t support the deprecated versions by default. Yes, php 7.1 was deprecated in December 2019, and php 7.2 will be the next to go in November 2020.
You need to run a brew tap to allow deprecated versions.
brew tap exolnet/homebrew-deprecated
Then I was able to install even php 5.6 - which perhaps was needed for a project :)
PHP versions can be switched using homebrew unlink and link to the required version. This is even easy with Valet.
valet use [email protected]
And php -v shows the switched version immediately. However, in web-browser, the phpinfo didn’t display the switched version. The valet stop and start did not work. I was able to see the updated version in the browser only after restarting the mac.
Well, that was not all. There was another issue while switching PHP versions. The icu4c libraries required by these PHP versions are different causing the error as below
php -v
I found a solution here. Thanks to SO. I followed these instructions and it worked.
cd to the Homebrew’s formula directory cd /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Taps/homebrew/homebrew-core/Formula
icu4c) to checkout git log --follow icu4c.rb
git checkout -b icu4c-64 896d1018c7a4906f2c3fa1386aaf283497db60a2
brew reinstall ./icu4c.rb
brew switch icu4c 64.1
git checkout master
Hope this helps in setting up your PHP development environment using Valet. Please refer to the official Valet documentation for more details.
Cheers!
Written by
A Software Engineer by profession, Amit has been a passionate technology enthusiast since his college days. He has been with Ranium since its early days and brings with him over 12 years of experience in the field. His core expertise lies in PHP, and he is a Zend Certified PHP 5 Engineer. He aspires to build impactful open-source software that makes technology more accessible and inspires others to contribute to the community.
In his role as a Project Manager, Amit enjoys taking on new and challenging projects alongside his team. He is known for his calm and friendly nature, making it easy for teammates to approach him and ask for help.
Amit believes in celebrating the small joys of life and strives to lead a fulfilling life with his family. He enjoys traveling and never misses a chance to go on long bike rides. As a proud father, he now cherishes creating meaningful memories with his son while balancing his professional and personal passions.
Fixer.io is a simple and lightweight API for current and historical foreign exchange rates. We came across this wonderful service while developing a recent project. I searched but couldn’t find any Fixer.io PHP client fitting our needs for the project so I decided to build a PHP and Laravel package for the same.