Global Installation of Composer (manual)

Question

I followed composer manual (global installation of composer (manual)) to install composer on Ubuntu.

$ ll /usr/local/bin/
total 4760
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root    4096 2012-03-29 08:29 ./
drwxr-xr-x 10 root root    4096 2011-04-26 00:50 ../
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root  410324 2012-03-29 08:28 composer.phar

Other scripts from /usr/local/bin/ works, but composer gives:

$php composer.phar update Could not open input file: composer.phar

It works only if I enter absolute path to composer.phar. How to fix this?

Answer 1

Don't add php in the beginning. Just call composer.phar.

Answer 2

I found an easier way to globally install composer than the manual proscribed in the github readme.md. It's actually on the getcomposer.org website:

$ curl -s http://getcomposer.org/installer | php
$ sudo mv composer.phar /usr/local/bin/composer.phar

And if you're even more lazy, like me, you can create an alias:

$ alias composer='/usr/local/bin/composer.phar'

This way you can invoke composer with just composer

Update: Composer now offers another method as well on the website:

$ curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php
$ (sudo) mv composer.phar /usr/local/bin/composer

Answer 3

for easier execution I created /usr/local/bin/composer with content:

#!/bin/sh
exec /usr/local/bin/composer.phar "$@"

dont forget about sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/composer.phar

Answer 4

Actually, getcomposer.org now recommends a simpler method:

$ curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php
$ sudo mv composer.phar /usr/local/bin/composer

Now you can just use composer without bothering with an alias or a separate sh script.

Answer 5

Another alternative to get a nice composer command instead of composer.phar:

$ curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php -- --install-dir=/usr/local/bin
$ ln -s /usr/local/bin/composer.phar /usr/local/bin/composer