Install packages locally works not as expected (at least not from the User's Working Model point of view)

[sinkaszab]

Install packages:

I successfully installed composer on Mac OS X 10.11.6. I installed it into a project directory.
So, composer will basically downloaded to: Users/MyUser/
My composer.phar then goes to Users/MyUser/Projects/project.local/
And then when I want to install a package, composer looks for the json in:
Users/MyUser/ dir
instead its project folder.
Kinda not good.

[alcohol]

I installed it into a project directory.

What does that mean?

So, composer will basically downloaded to: Users/MyUser/

What? Why?

My composer.phar then goes to Users/MyUser/Projects/project.local/

Your composer.phar travels?

And then when I want to install a package, composer looks for the json in:

Install how? Be descriptive, tell us what command you run and where you run it.

Using issue template: ★★★☆☆
Issue description: ★☆☆☆☆
Overal experience: ★★☆☆☆

[sinkaszab]

Okay, sorry, my bad...

I open a terminal and it basically gives me this starting point as of the location in the file system:
/Users/MyUser/

php -r "copy('https://getcomposer.org/installer', 'composer-setup.php');" -> Works fine.
Puts composer-setup.php into: /Users/MyUser/ directory.

php -r "if (hash_file('SHA384', 'composer-setup.php') === 'e115a8dc7871f15d853148a7fbac7da27d6c0030b848d9b3dc09e2a0388afed865e6a3d6b3c0fad45c48e2b5fc1196ae') { echo 'Installer verified'; } else { echo 'Installer corrupt'; unlink('composer-setup.php'); } echo PHP_EOL;"-> Works fine.

php composer-setup.php --install-dir=Projects/Project/
I install the composer.phar into a local project directory. Which will then be located there form then on. (Full path then: Users/User/Projects/Project/composer.phar)

Then comes my problem when I would like to install a package.

php Projects/Project/composer.phar install
This doesn't work as I assumed. Because I would like my package to be installed here:
Users/User/Projects/Project/vendor/package
Instead the package will land here:
Users/User/vendor/package

So summarizing the problem:
I want composer to be local, but instead, packages will land on a global location.

[sinkaszab]

Sorry. I'm new...

[alcohol]

Ah, okay, that explanation is much more useful. Thank you.

So the problem is that you want your working directory to be different from your current directory. You need to either cd into it, or pass it as an extra argument (-d / --working-dir).

So:

cd Projects/Project
php composer.phar install

or

php Projects/Project/composer.phar -d Projects/Project install

[sinkaszab]

Yes! Works just as expected. However would be nice if that would be handled automatically OR mentioned in the documentation.