pear-pear.php.net packages install fails on Windows

[brandomeniconi]

When I'm trying to install this project with a PEAR dependancy:

...
"repositories": [
    {
        "type": "pear",
        "url": "http://pear.php.net"
    }    
  ],
  "require": {
    "php": ">=5.4",
    "pear-pear.php.net/Services_GeoNames":"*"    
  } 
...

i'm getting the following error:

Initializing PEAR repository http://pear.php.net
Updating dependencies (including require-dev)
  - Installing pear-pear.php.net/net_url2 (2.1.1)
    Loading from cache

[UnexpectedValueException]
Failed to extract PEAR package C:\Users\Username\project\vendor/pear-pear.php.net/Net_URL2/Net_URL2-2.1.1.tgz to C:\Users\Username\project\vendor/pear-pear.php.net/Net_URL2. 
Reason: simplexml_load_file(): I/O warning : failed to load external entity "C:\Users\Username\project\vendor/pear-pear.php.net/Net_URL2/tarball/package.xml"

[ErrorException]
simplexml_load_file(): I/O warning : failed to load external entity "C:\Users\Username\project\vendor/pear-pear.php.net/Net_URL2/tarball/package.xml"

update [--prefer-source] [--prefer-dist] [--dry-run] [--dev] [--no-dev] [--lock] [--no-plugins] [--no-custom-installers] [--no-autoloader] [--no-scripts] [--no-progress] [--with-dependencies] [-v|vv|v
vv|--verbose] [-o|--optimize-autoloader] [--ignore-platform-reqs] [--prefer-stable] [--prefer-lowest] [packages1] ... [packagesN]

I'm on a Windows 8.1 machine and I noticed that the path passed to simplexml_load_file(), which causes the error, has mixed backward and forward slashes. Could be that the problem?

[brandomeniconi]

Update: tested on linux env and works good.

[jakoch]

I can't reproduce this on Win7. I ran composer install twice. First a normal install, then with deleted vendor folder to test the package loading from cache, like in your issue.

[brandomeniconi]

I found the problem: the PHP installation shipped with Google AppEngine comes with external XML entity loader disabled.

I just recompiled composer with:

libxml_disable_entity_loader(false);

and the installer works. Sorry :).

But I can propose to use:

if ($fileContents = file_get_contents($uri)) {
  $xmlItem = simplexml_load_string($fileContents);
}

to workaround this rare issue.

Thanks