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title:
  - value: |
      Why use Composer to manage Drupal dependencies?
created:
  - value: '2023-10-10T00:00:00+00:00'
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  - value: '2025-05-11T09:00:30+00:00'
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body:
  - value: |
      <p>One of the initial negatives when Drupal 8 launched was introducing Composer, PHP's dependency manager, and how it could affect non-technical users.</p>

      <p>When I started doing Drupal, I downloaded the .tar.gz or .zip file of Drupal, extracted it, and placed it within my project.</p>

      <p>I did the same for any additional modules I needed.</p>

      <p>To update them, I needed to delete my files and repeat the process of downloading and replacing them.</p>

      <h2 id="drush">Drush</h2>

      <p>Then, instead of doing it manually, I used Drush, the "Drupal shell", to download the files. This saved some time, but it still has down-sides.</p>

      <p>What if you needed to install a module like Pathauto, which has dependencies you also need to download and install?</p>

      <p>With Drush or downloading the files manually, you'd need to download the dependencies separately.</p>

      <h2 id="composer">Composer</h2>

      <p>Composer is a dependency manager, which means it can handle these dependencies for us.</p>

      <p>It looks at each project's <code>composer.json</code> file to find its dependencies and downloads them.</p>

      <p>For example, to install Pathauto, you run <code>composer require drupal/pathauto</code>.</p>

      <p>Within its output, you'll see this:</p>

      <pre><code class="language-plain">Package operations: 3 installs, 0 updates, 0 removals
        - Downloading drupal/token (1.12.0)
        - Downloading drupal/ctools (4.0.4)
        - Downloading drupal/pathauto (1.12.0)
      </code></pre>

      <p>As well as Pathauto, it's downloading its dependencies - ctools and pathauto.</p>

      <p>Instead of downloading three modules, we can do it with one command.</p>

      <p>In fact, we don't need to know what its dependencies are - Composer will do that.</p>

      <p>Also, updating the modules is just another simple command - <code>composer update</code>.</p>

      <p>While it may be intimidating to non-technical users, learning a few simple commands makes installing and updating modules much easier!</p>

              
    format: full_html
    processed: |
      <p>One of the initial negatives when Drupal 8 launched was introducing Composer, PHP's dependency manager, and how it could affect non-technical users.</p>

      <p>When I started doing Drupal, I downloaded the .tar.gz or .zip file of Drupal, extracted it, and placed it within my project.</p>

      <p>I did the same for any additional modules I needed.</p>

      <p>To update them, I needed to delete my files and repeat the process of downloading and replacing them.</p>

      <h2 id="drush">Drush</h2>

      <p>Then, instead of doing it manually, I used Drush, the "Drupal shell", to download the files. This saved some time, but it still has down-sides.</p>

      <p>What if you needed to install a module like Pathauto, which has dependencies you also need to download and install?</p>

      <p>With Drush or downloading the files manually, you'd need to download the dependencies separately.</p>

      <h2 id="composer">Composer</h2>

      <p>Composer is a dependency manager, which means it can handle these dependencies for us.</p>

      <p>It looks at each project's <code>composer.json</code> file to find its dependencies and downloads them.</p>

      <p>For example, to install Pathauto, you run <code>composer require drupal/pathauto</code>.</p>

      <p>Within its output, you'll see this:</p>

      <pre><code class="language-plain">Package operations: 3 installs, 0 updates, 0 removals
        - Downloading drupal/token (1.12.0)
        - Downloading drupal/ctools (4.0.4)
        - Downloading drupal/pathauto (1.12.0)
      </code></pre>

      <p>As well as Pathauto, it's downloading its dependencies - ctools and pathauto.</p>

      <p>Instead of downloading three modules, we can do it with one command.</p>

      <p>In fact, we don't need to know what its dependencies are - Composer will do that.</p>

      <p>Also, updating the modules is just another simple command - <code>composer update</code>.</p>

      <p>While it may be intimidating to non-technical users, learning a few simple commands makes installing and updating modules much easier!</p>

              
    summary: null
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