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Nix shells for PHP development

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Nix shell

Tutorial

Description

This package provides a Nix flake ready to use for PHP development, using the Nix package manager which can be installed on (almost) any operating system.

Each available environment provides the following tools:

  • Custom php.ini loading,
  • Composer,
  • Git,
  • Github CLi,
  • Symfony CLi,
  • GNU Make.

Available PHP versions from 5.6 to 8.2.

The PHP extensions to use are automatically inferred from the composer.json file.

...8<...

"require": {
  "ext-intl": "*",
},
"require-dev": {
  "ext-xdebug": "*",
  "ext-pcov": "*",
}

...>8...

To load extensions from require and required-dev sections, using the flag --impure is required. Exemple:

nix shell github:loophp/nix-shell#php82 --impure

We use Cachix to store binaries of the built packages. Install it as described in its docs and then add the cache using cachix use nix-shell if you want to avoid building those PHP packages yourself.

cachix use nix-shell

Usage

While being extremely stable for years, "flake" is an upcoming feature of the Nix package manager. In order to use it, you must explicitly enable it, please check the documentation to enable it, this is currently an opt-in option.

In a shell

To work with PHP 8.1 only:

nix shell github:loophp/nix-shell#php81

or with PHP 8.1 and a couple of useful tools:

nix shell github:loophp/nix-shell#env-php81

PHP has ZTS enabled by default (see #154774), feel free to use the NTS if needed, see the matrix below.

Available PHP versions and environments are:

  • php56, php56-nts
  • env-php56, env-php56-nts
  • php70, php70-nts
  • env-php70, env-php70-nts
  • php71, php71-nts
  • env-php71, env-php71-nts
  • php72, php72-nts
  • env-php72, env-php72-nts
  • php73, php73-nts
  • env-php73, env-php73-nts
  • php74, php74-nts
  • env-php74, env-php74-nts
  • php80, php80-nts
  • env-php80, env-php80-nts
  • php81, php81-nts
  • env-php81, env-php81-nts
  • php82, php82-nts
  • env-php82, env-php82-nts

This package also provide development environments with some tools:

In order to use them, use the prefix env-:

nix shell github:loophp/nix-shell#env-php81-nts

In another flake

Import the input:

  inputs = {
    nixpkgs.url = "github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixpkgs-unstable";
    flake-utils.url = "github:numtide/flake-utils";
    phps.url = "github:loophp/nix-shell";
  };

Then each PHP environment will be available at

    # PHP 8.1 Non-Thread-Safe only
    phps.packages.${system}.php81-nts

or

    # PHP 8.1 environment + Non-Thread-Safe
    phps.packages.${system}.env-php81-nts

You may also use the API to build your own custom version of PHP in your own flake:

{
  description = "A very basic flake";

  inputs = {
    nixpkgs.url = "github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixpkgs-unstable";
    flake-utils.url = "github:numtide/flake-utils";
    nix-shell.url = "github:loophp/nix-shell";
  };

  outputs = { self, nixpkgs, flake-utils, nix-shell }:
    flake-utils.lib.eachDefaultSystem
      (system:
        let
          pkgs = import nixpkgs {
            inherit system;
          };

          php = (nix-shell.api.makePhp system {
            php = "php81";
            withExtensions = [ "pcov" "xdebug" ];
            withoutExtensions = [ "sodium" ];
            extraConfig = ''
              memory_limit=-1
            '';
            flags = {
              apxs2Support = false;
              ztsSupport = false;
            };
          });
        in
        {
          devShells = {
            default = pkgs.mkShellNoCC {
              name = "PHP project";

              buildInputs = [
                php
                php.packages.composer
                pkgs.mailhog
              ];
            };
          };
        }
      );
}

With direnv

direnv is an extension for your shell. It augments existing shells with a new feature that can load and unload environment variables depending on the current directory. You can use it within Nix (nix-direnv) and load a development environment just by changing directory.

Edit the file .envrc and add the line:

use flake github:loophp/nix-shell#env-php81-nts --impure

And it's done !

Customize PHP

To customize the PHP configuration, you can do it like this:

nix shell github:loophp/nix-shell#php81
php -c /path/to/the/config.ini <<command>>

Another option would be to create a .user.ini file within your current working directory before running the PHP environment, as such:

max_execution_time = 0
memory_limit = 2048M

Then run:

nix shell github:loophp/nix-shell#php81 --impure

The --impure flag is important to make sure that your custom .user.ini file is correctly taken in account.

Contributing

Feel free to contribute by sending pull requests. We are a usually very responsive team and we will help you going through your pull request from the beginning to the end.

For some reasons, if you can't contribute to the code and willing to help, sponsoring is a good, sound and safe way to show us some gratitude for the hours we invested in this package.

Sponsor me on Github and/or any of the contributors.

Thanks

Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md for a changelog based on git commits.

For more detailed changelogs, please check the release changelogs.