pvm

pvm is a small PHP version manager for development machines using PHP builds from Homebrew.

It creates a php shim and resolves the active version from:

1. .php-version in the current directory or a parent directory.
2. The global version in ~/.config/pvm/global.
3. The default fallback version, 8.2.

Install

Clone this repository and add bin to your PATH:

export PATH="$HOME/Work/personal/pvm/bin:$HOME/.local/pvm/shims:$PATH"

To make it permanent, add that line to your shell profile.

Or install directly from the Git repository:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/thiagolepidus/pvm/main/install.sh | bash

The remote installer installs Homebrew when it is missing, configures the shivammathur/php and shivammathur/extensions taps, installs pvm, and adds Homebrew plus pvm to your shell profile.

If your fork uses a different raw URL, override the source URL:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/USER/pvm/main/install.sh \
  | PVM_SOURCE_URL=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/USER/pvm/main/bin/pvm bash

Usage

Install a PHP version:

pvm install 8.2

Supported versions are 5.6, 7.0 to 7.4, and 8.0 to 8.6.

Install PHP with extensions:

pvm install 7.4 --with-extensions xdebug redis imagick

Set the global PHP version:

pvm use 8.2

Set the PHP version for the current project:

pvm use --local 7.4

Show the active version:

pvm current

Run PHP normally:

php -v
php -S 127.0.0.1:8082 -t public

Requirements

• Homebrew.
• The shivammathur/php tap for PHP versions.
• The shivammathur/extensions tap for optional external extensions.

pvm install taps the required repositories automatically:

brew tap shivammathur/php
brew tap shivammathur/extensions

PHP formulas use the php@<version> naming convention, for example:

shivammathur/php/php@7.4
shivammathur/php/php@8.2

External extension formulas use the <extension>@<version> naming convention, for example:

shivammathur/extensions/xdebug@8.2