Composer Installation

• App Starter
• Adding CodeIgniter4 to an Existing Project
• Translations Installation

Composer can be used in several ways to install CodeIgniter4 on your system.

The first two techniques describe creating a skeleton project using CodeIgniter4, that you would then use as the base for a new webapp. The third technique described below lets you add CodeIgniter4 to an existing webapp,

Note: if you are using a Git repository to store your code, or for collaboration with others, then the vendor folder would normally be “git ignored”. In such a case, you will need to do a composer update when you clone the repository to a new system.

App Starter

The CodeIgniter 4 app starter repository holds a skeleton application, with a composer dependency on the latest released version of the framework.

This installation technique would suit a developer who wishes to start a new CodeIgniter4 based project.

Installation & Set Up

In the folder above your project root:

composer create-project codeigniter4/appstarter project-root

The command above will create a “project-root” folder.

If you omit the “project-root” argument, the command will create an “appstarter” folder, which can be renamed as appropriate.

If you don’t need or want phpunit installed, and all of its composer dependencies, then add the “–no-dev” option to the end of the above command line. That will result in only the framework, and the three trusted dependencies that we bundle, being composer-installed.

A sample such installation command, using the default project-root “appstarter”:

composer create-project codeigniter4/appstarter --no-dev

After installation you should follow the steps in the “Upgrading” section.

Upgrading

Whenever there is a new release, then from the command line in your project root:

composer update

If you used the “–no-dev” option when you created the project, it would be appropriate to do so here too, i.e. composer update --no-dev.

Read the upgrade instructions, and check designated app/Config folders for affected changes.

Pros

Simple installation; easy to update

Cons

You still need to check for app/Config changes after updating

Structure

Folders in your project after set up:

• app, public, tests, writable
• vendor/codeigniter4/framework/system
• vendor/codeigniter4/framework/app & public (compare with yours after updating)

Latest Dev

The App Starter repo comes with a builds scripts to switch Composer sources between the current stable release and the latest development branch of the framework. Use this script for a developer who is willing to live with the latest unreleased changes, which may be unstable.

The development user guide is accessible online. Note that this differs from the released user guide, and will pertain to the develop branch explicitly.

In your project root:

php builds development

The command above will update composer.json to point to the develop branch of the working repository, and update the corresponding paths in config and XML files. To revert these changes run:

php builds release

After using the builds command be sure to run composer update to sync your vendor folder with the latest target build.

Adding CodeIgniter4 to an Existing Project

The same CodeIgniter 4 framework repository described in “Manual Installation” can also be added to an existing project using Composer.

Develop your app inside the app folder, and the public folder will be your document root.

In your project root:

composer require codeigniter4/framework

As with the earlier two composer install methods, you can omit installing phpunit and its dependencies by adding the “–no-dev” argument to the “composer require” command.

Set Up

Copy the app, public, tests and writable folders from vendor/codeigniter4/framework to your project root

Copy the env, phpunit.xml.dist and spark files, from vendor/codeigniter4/framework to your project root

You will have to adjust the system path to refer to the vendor one, e.g. ROOTPATH . '/vendor/codeigniter4/framework/system', - the $systemDirectory variable in app/Config/Paths.php

Upgrading

Whenever there is a new release, then from the command line in your project root:

composer update

Read the upgrade instructions, and check designated app/Config folders for affected changes.

Pros

Relatively simple installation; easy to update

Cons

You still need to check for app/Config changes after updating

Structure

Folders in your project after set up:

• app, public, tests, writable
• vendor/codeigniter4/framework/system

Translations Installation

If you want to take advantage of the system message translations, they can be added to your project in a similar fashion.

From the command line inside your project root:

composer require codeigniter4/translations

These will be updated along with the framework whenever you do a composer update.