26 lines
1.2 KiB
Markdown
26 lines
1.2 KiB
Markdown
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---
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date: 2025-06-24
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title: PHP and Nix shells
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permalink: /daily/2025/06/24/php-and-nix-shells
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---
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What if you needed to run or test multiple versions of PHP?
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Would you use options like virtual machines or containers, which install full operating systems, just to get access to different versions of the same package?
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Would you need to create a different VM or container for each version of PHP?
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Another approach is to use Nix or, more specifically, nixpkgs - a package manager with more than 120,000 packages that can be installed on macOS or any Linux distribution.
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The [current stable release][0] (25.05) has 8.4.8, 8.3.22, 8.2.28 and 8.1.32 available, as well as other packages like PHPUnit and Phpactor.
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You can add any of these versions to a Nix configuration file, or create temporary shells with the version you need by running simple commands like `nix shell nixpkgs#php83`.
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In that shell, you have access to PHP 8.3.
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Once you leave it, you can re-run the command with a different version of PHP.
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And it works with other languages such as nodejs, by running similar commands like `nix shell nixpkgs#nodejs_22`, making it even more powerful.
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[0]: https://search.nixos.org/packages?channel=25.05&query=php
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