Build a PHP project

For Language versions and other build-environment specific information visit our reference pages:

• Precise
• Trusty
• Xenial
• Bionic
• Focal
• Jammy
• Noble

This guide covers build environment and configuration topics specific to PHP projects. Please make sure to read our Onboarding and General Build configuration guides first.

PHP builds are not available on the macOS environment.

Test against PHP versions #

Travis CI provides several PHP versions, all of which include XDebug and PHPUnit. Travis CI uses phpenv to manage the different PHP versions installed on the virtual machines.

An example .travis.yml file that tests various PHP versions:

language: php
php:
  - '5.4'
  - '5.6'
  - '7.0'
  - nightly

X.Y versions are aliases for recent X.Y.Z releases pre-installed on the build images. For exact versions used in your build, consult “Build system information” in the build log.

These may not be the most recent releases. If you need to ensure the use of most recent releases, do provide the third number; e.g.,

language: php
php:
  - 7.1.9

PHP Supported versions #

The list of PHP versions available for on-demand installation can be found in the table below.

Nightly builds #

Travis CI can test your PHP applications with a nightly PHP build, which includes PHPUnit and Composer, but does not include third-party PHP extensions:

language: php

php:
  - nightly

Default Build Script #

The default build script is PHPUnit. It comes packaged with PHP, but you can also install a specific version in a custom location. If you do install it separately, make sure you invoke the correct version by using the full path.

Travis CI looks for phpunit in the same order as Composer does and uses the first one found.

1. $COMPOSER_BIN_DIR/phpunit
2. phpunit found in the directory specified by bin-dir in composer.json
3. vendor/bin/phpunit
4. phpunit, which is found on $PATH (typically one that is pre-packaged with the PHP runtime)

If your project uses something other than PHPUnit, you can override the default build script.

Work with atoum #

Instead of PHPunit, you can also use atoum to test your projects. For example:

before_script: composer require atoum/atoum
script: vendor/bin/atoum

Dependency Management #

Before Travis CI can run your test suite, it may be necessary to install your project dependencies. It can be done using a PHP script, a shell script or anything you need. Define one or more commands you want Travis CI to use with the install option in your .travis.yml, for example:

install: php vendor/vendors.php

or, if you need to run multiple commands sequentially:

install:
  - ./bin/ci/install_dependencies.sh
  - php vendor/vendors.php

Test against Multiple Versions of Dependencies #

If you need to test against multiple versions of, say, Symfony, you can instruct Travis CI to do multiple runs with different sets or values of environment variables. Use env key in your .travis.yml file, for example:

env:
  - SYMFONY_VERSION="2.0.*" DB=mysql
  - SYMFONY_VERSION="dev-master" DB=mysql

and then use ENV variable values in any later script like your dependencies installation scripts, test cases or test script parameter values.

Here is an example using the above ENV variable to modify the dependencies when using the composer package manager to run the tests against the 2 different versions of Symfony as defined above.

install:
   - composer require symfony/framework-bundle:${SYMFONY_VERSION}

Here, we use DB variable value to pick phpunit configuration file:

    script: phpunit --configuration $DB.phpunit.xml

The same technique is often used to test projects against multiple databases and so on.

To see real-world examples, see:

• FOSRest
• LiipHyphenatorBundle
• doctrine2

Install Composer packages #

Warning: This development build of composer is over 30 days old. It is recommended to update it by running "/home/travis/.phpenv/versions/5.6/bin/composer self-update" to get the latest version.

You can also install Composer packages into the Travis CI PHP environment. The composer command comes pre-installed, use the following:

composer install

To ensure that everything works, use http(s) URLs on Packagist and not git URLs.

PHP installation #

You’ll find the default configure options used to build the different PHP versions used on Travis CI here, it will give you an overview of Travis CI’s PHP installation.

Custom PHP configuration #

The easiest way to customize your PHP configuration is to use phpenv config-add to add a custom config file with your configuration directives:

before_script: phpenv config-add myconfig.ini

Make sure that your config file does not start with a dot (.) or a hyphen (-) as this will prevent PHP loading your custom settings.

And myconfig.ini:

extension = "mongo.so"
date.timezone = "Europe/Paris"
default_socket_timeout = 120
# some other configuration directives...

You can also use this one line command in your .travis.yml:

before_script: echo 'date.timezone = "Europe/Paris"' >> ~/.phpenv/versions/$(phpenv version-name)/etc/conf.d/travis.ini

Enable preinstalled PHP extensions #

You need to enable them by adding an extension="<extension>.so" line to a PHP configuration file (for the current PHP version). The easiest way to do this is by using phpenv to add a custom config file which enables and eventually configure the extension:

before_install: phpenv config-add myconfig.ini

Make sure that your config file does not start with a dot (.) or a hyphen (-) as this will prevent PHP loading your custom settings.

And myconfig.ini:

extension="mongo.so"
# some other mongo specific configuration directives
# or general custom PHP settings...

You can also use this one line command:

before_install: echo "extension = <extension>.so" >> ~/.phpenv/versions/$(phpenv version-name)/etc/php.ini

Disable preinstalled PHP extensions #

To disable xdebug, add this to your configuration:

before_script:
  - phpenv config-rm xdebug.ini

Install additional PHP extensions #

It is possible to install custom PHP extensions into the Travis CI environment using PECL, but they have to be built against the PHP version being tested.

For example, to install memcache:

pecl install <extension>

PECL will automatically enable the extension at the end of the installation. If you want to configure your extension, use the phpenv config-add command to add a custom ini configuration file in your before_script.

It is also possible to do the installation “manually”, but you’ll have to manually enable the extension after the installation either with phpenv config-add and a custom ini file or with this one line command:

echo "extension=<extension>.so" >> ~/.phpenv/versions/$(phpenv version-name)/etc/php.ini

See also the full script using midgard2.

If you need specific version of preinstalled extension, you need to force install specific version with the -f flag. For example:

pecl install -f mongo-1.2.12

Note on pecl install #

Note that pecl install can fail if the requested version of the package is already installed.

Apache + PHP #

Currently, Travis CI does not support mod_php for apache, but you can configure php-fpm for your integration tests:

before_script:
  - sudo apt-get update
  - sudo apt-get install apache2 libapache2-mod-fastcgi
  # enable php-fpm
  - sudo cp ~/.phpenv/versions/$(phpenv version-name)/etc/php-fpm.conf.default ~/.phpenv/versions/$(phpenv version-name)/etc/php-fpm.conf
  - sudo a2enmod rewrite actions fastcgi alias
  - echo "cgi.fix_pathinfo = 1" >> ~/.phpenv/versions/$(phpenv version-name)/etc/php.ini
  - sudo sed -i -e "s,www-data,travis,g" /etc/apache2/envvars
  - sudo chown -R travis:travis /var/lib/apache2/fastcgi
  - ~/.phpenv/versions/$(phpenv version-name)/sbin/php-fpm
  # configure apache virtual hosts
  - sudo cp -f build/travis-ci-apache /etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf
  - sudo sed -e "s?%TRAVIS_BUILD_DIR%?$(pwd)?g" --in-place /etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf
  - sudo service apache2 restart

Note that sudo is not available for builds that are running on container-based.

You will need to have build/travis-ci-apache file that will configure your virtual host as usual, the important part for php-fpm is this:

<VirtualHost *:80>
  # [...]

  DocumentRoot %TRAVIS_BUILD_DIR%

  <Directory "%TRAVIS_BUILD_DIR%/">
    Options FollowSymLinks MultiViews ExecCGI
    AllowOverride All
    Require all granted
  </Directory>

  # Wire up Apache to use Travis CI's php-fpm.
  <IfModule mod_fastcgi.c>
    AddHandler php5-fcgi .php
    Action php5-fcgi /php5-fcgi
    Alias /php5-fcgi /usr/lib/cgi-bin/php5-fcgi
    FastCgiExternalServer /usr/lib/cgi-bin/php5-fcgi -host 127.0.0.1:9000 -pass-header Authorization

    <Directory /usr/lib/cgi-bin>
        Require all granted
    </Directory>
  </IfModule>

  # [...]
</VirtualHost>

Build Config Reference #

You can find more information on the build config format for PHP in our Travis CI Build Config Reference.

Examples #

• Drupal

PHP versions #

These archives are available for on-demand installation.