What are the differences between composer update and composer install?

by

composer update

composer update will update your depencencies as they are specified in composer.json

For example, if you require this package as a dependency:

"mockery/mockery": "0.9.*",

and you have actually installed the 0.9.1 version of the package, running composer update will cause an upgrade of this package (for example to 0.9.2, if it’s already been released)

in detail composer update will:

  • Read composer.json
  • Remove installed packages that are no more required in composer.json
  • Check the availability of the latest versions of your required packages
  • Install the latest versions of your packages
  • Update composer.lock to store the installed packages version

composer install

composer install will not update anything; it will just install all the dependencies as specified in the composer.lock file

In detail:

  • Check if composer.lock file exists (if not, it will run composer update and create it)
  • Read composer.lock file
  • Install the packages specified in the composer.lock file

When to install and when to update

  • composer update is mostly used in the ‘development phase’, to upgrade our project packages according to what we have specified in the composer.json file,

  • composer install is primarily used in the ‘deploying phase’ to install our application on a production server or on a testing environment, using the same dependencies stored in the composer.lock file created by composer update.

More Related Contents:

  1. What are these exactly?: Composer, Git and Pyrus [closed]
  2. Why am I Facing with this problem when run symfony? [closed]
  3. How to explain Composer’s error log?
  4. Composer require runs out of memory. PHP Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 1610612736 bytes exhausted
  5. How to require a fork with composer?
  6. Class Foo\Bar\Baz located in ./foo/bar/utility/baz.php does not comply with psr-4 autoloading standard. Skipping
  7. Reference – Composer error “Your PHP version does not satisfy requirements” after upgrading PHP
  8. Composer Warning: openssl extension is missing. How to enable in WAMP
  9. require(vendor/autoload.php): failed to open stream
  10. Tell Composer to use Different PHP Version
  11. You must enable the openssl extension to download files via https
  12. What Are the Differences Between PSR-0 and PSR-4?
  13. install ext-zip for Mac
  14. Use PHP composer to clone git repo
  15. Laravel 5 Class ‘form’ not found
  16. Composer Update failed — out of memory
  17. How to add private github repository as Composer dependency
  18. How to change PHP version used by composer
  19. How to use composer packages in codeigniter?
  20. Installing specific laravel version with composer create-project
  21. 3rd party dependency conflict in developing WordPress Plugin
  22. How to downgrade or install a specific version of Composer?
  23. Fatal error: Class ‘Illuminate\Foundation\Application’ not found
  24. Using Composer’s Autoload
  25. Is there any way to install Composer globally on Windows?
  26. How to deploy correctly when using Composer’s develop / production switch?
  27. Skip composer PHP requirement
  28. but these conflict with your requirements or minimum-stability
  29. Difference between require and install vs create-project in composer
  30. Class Firebase\JWT\JWT not found

Leave a Comment