This project is currently an experiment. It will likely break your system.

You have been warned.

Clone this repository somewhere on your device (I'd recommend something like ~/.phpvm but it should work anywhere you have write privliges).

Run composer install on the directory.

me@local:path/to/phpvm$ composer install

Then run with an existing PHP install

me@local:~$ php path/to/phpvm/bin/phpvm setup

This will edit your ~/.profile file to adjust the path, as well as initialize its configuration files.

Restart your terminal.

Finally, if you're on Ubuntu, you can install the compile dependnecies automatically (this requires sudo):

me@local:~$ phpvm install-dependencies

It will propt for your sudo password. If you're unconfortable with that, you can manually install the dependencies. Just look at the phpvm file for information.

To install new versions, you can run phpvm install:

me@local:~$ phpvm install 7.3.5
// installing 7.3.5, will take a few minutes

You can list all installed versions with the list command:

me@local:~$ phpvm list
✓ 7.2.17
✓ 7.3.5
✓ 7.1.2

Switching versions is done by the use command:

me@local:~$ phpvm use 7.3.5
me@local:~$ php -v
PHP 7.3.5 (cli) (built: May 16 2019 18:00:08) ( NTS )
Copyright (c) 1997-2018 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v3.3.5, Copyright (c) 1998-2018 Zend Technologies

You can also have it automatically switch versions depending on which folder you are in (the current working directory).

It will recursively scan for a .php-version file. If it finds one, it will use the install specified inside.

Therefore, if you have multiple projects, each requiring a seperate version of PHP, you can have it automatically switch when you cd between the projects.

Imagine the following structure:

• ~/foo
• ~/foo/baz

If we add a .php-version inside of /home/foo with the contents of 7.1.2, then the following will result:

me@local:~$ php -v
PHP 7.2.17
me@local:~$ cd foo
me@local:~/foo$ php -v
PHP 7.1.2
me@local:~/foo$ cd baz
me@local:~/foo/baz$ php -v
PHP 7.1.2
me@local:~/foo/baz$ cd ../..
me@local:~$ php -v
PHP 7.2.17

And so on.

Note: if a .php-version file is found, it will always override the phpvm use version. if you really need to override it, you can manually do so using the PHP_OVERRIDE environment variable:

me@local:~$ php -v
PHP 7.2.17
me@local:~$ cd foo
me@local:~/foo$ php -v
PHP 7.1.2
me@local:~/foo$ PHP_OVERRIDE="7.3.5" php -v
PHP 7.3.5

Composer should work out of the box, supporting whatever version is currently in use.

Currently, extensions aren't supported. Consider this a todo.

• Support non-Ubuntu distros for dependency installation
• Support extensions
• Support non-compiled versions of PHP (package installed)
• Support non-released versions of PHP (7.3 branch, 7.4 branch, master, etc)
• And a lot more...