A brief analysis of how to install multiple versions of PHP at the same time

In the process of web development, we often need to install multiple versions of PHP at the same time. This situation usually occurs when we need to support different projects, and these projects may depend on different PHP versions. However, installing multiple versions of PHP at the same time will also bring some challenges that need to be handled carefully. This article will introduce how to install multiple versions of PHP at the same time. I hope it will be helpful to you.

Step one: Install multiple versions of PHP

On Linux systems, we can use the Yum package manager to install multiple versions of PHP. However, since different Linux distributions use different Yum package managers, we need to find the corresponding commands. For example, on CentOS systems, we can install PHP 5.6 and PHP 7.2 using the following commands:

sudo yum install -y https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-7.noarch.rpm
sudo yum install -y http://rpms.remirepo.net/enterprise/remi-release-7.rpm
sudo yum install -y yum-utils
sudo yum-config-manager --enable remi-php56
sudo yum-config-manager --enable remi-php72
sudo yum update
sudo yum install -y php56 php72

These commands will install the PHP 5.6 and PHP 7.2 versions and enable the corresponding Yum repositories.

On Windows systems, we need to download multiple versions of PHP installers. We can download different versions of PHP installers from the PHP official website, and then install them according to the prompts. Note that we need to install different versions of PHP in different directories to avoid version conflicts.

Step 2: Configure multiple versions of PHP

After the installation is completed, we need to configure multiple versions of PHP. On Linux systems, we can use the following command to switch PHP versions:

sudo alternatives --set php /usr/bin/php56   # 切换到PHP 5.6版本
sudo alternatives --set php /usr/bin/php72   # 切换到PHP 7.2版本

On Windows systems, we need to configure environment variables to switch PHP versions. We can set the PHPRC environment variable to specify the path to the PHP configuration file, for example:

set PHPRC=C:\PHP56\php.ini   # 设置PHP 5.6的配置文件路径
set PATH=C:\PHP56;%PATH%     # 将PHP 5.6的路径添加到PATH变量中

These configurations will allow us to automatically use the configuration file and extension library when using the PHP command line tool and web server.

Step 3: Test multiple versions of PHP

After completing the configuration, we need to test whether multiple versions of PHP are working properly. We can create a test script to check the PHP version and extension libraries. For example, on a Linux system, we can create a test script using the following command:

echo "<?php phpinfo(); ?>" > /var/www/html/phpinfo.php

This script will create a phpinfo.php file in the root directory of the web server. We can access this file to view detailed information about PHP, including version number, extension libraries, and configuration information.

On Windows systems, we can also create a test script, for example:

<?php
phpinfo();
?>

We can save this script as a phpinfo.php file and place it in the root directory of the web server Down. We can then check the PHP version and extension libraries by accessing this file.

Conclusion

In this article, we explained how to install multiple versions of PHP at the same time. We can use different methods on Linux and Windows systems to achieve the same purpose. Installing multiple versions of PHP at the same time can help us support different projects and avoid version conflicts. However, we need to handle it carefully to avoid problems when using different PHP versions.

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