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Installing PHP7, Composer and CodeSniffer on Windows 10 (for VSCode)

This post will guide you through clean (non-polluting) Windows 10 installations of PHP 7, Composer and PHP CodeSniffer and will show you how to integrate it all with Visual Studio Code as a bonus.

1. Installing PHP

First download one of the PHP binaries suitable for your system (we used the 64-bit Thread Safe version of PHP 7.1.2 when creating this post but any version will do).

Next:

  • Extract the downloaded zip file
  • Rename the resultant directory to php-x64
  • Move the renamed directory to "C:\Program Files"

FYI: may choose any other directory name but this post will assume PHP installed in "C:\Program Files\php-x64"

Enable OpenSSL

PHP will not have OpenSSL enabled by default which will cause Composer errors later on so we might as well enable it right now by opening a Command Prompt (with elevated admin permissions) and running:

cd "C:\Program Files\php-x64"
cp php.ini-production php.ini

Close the Command Prompt and open "C:\Program Files\php-x64\php.ini" with your editor to uncomment the following lines:

extension_dir = "ext"
extension=php_openssl.dll

2. Installing Composer

Download and run the Composer Windows installer.

Make sure that the installer detects your PHP installation before completing the installation:

Screenshot of Composer installation detecting PHP

Good to know:

  • The composer binary is found in "C:\ProgramData\ComposerSetup\bin"
  • The PATH (system) environment variable has been updated to include the above bin directory

Change the global install path

By default Composer will install global packages into C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming which can become quite cluttering so we change it.

  1. Create new directory "C:\Program Files\php-x64\composer"

  2. Open the system control panel by pressing WINDOWS KEY+PAUSE/BREAK KEY

  3. Select Advanced system Settings

  4. Select Environmental variables

  5. Under System Variables, press New and enter the following settings:

Screenshot of new system variable
  1. Select OK to round up this step

Add vendor bin directory to PATH

To make sure your system will be able to find composer installed binaries like phpcs we will need to add the global vendor directory to the system PATH environment variable.

  1. Open the system control panel (WINDOWS KEY +PAUSE/BREAK)

  2. Select Advanced system Settings

  3. Select Environmental variables

  4. Under System Variables, select existing Path variable

  5. Select Edit

  6. Select New and enter C:\Program Files\php-x64\composer\vendor\bin like shown below:

Screenshot of editing existing PATH system variable
  1. Press OK trice to apply the setting

Make sure to close all open any CMD boxes or they will not be aware of the new environment variable.

3. Installing PHP_CodeSniffer

Open a Command Prompt (without elevated permissions) and run:

composer global require "squizlabs/php_codesniffer=*"
phpcs --version

4. Installing additional Coding Standards

Installation instructions will differ per additional coding standard so we will just use cakephp-codesniffer as an example here.

Open your global C:\Program Files\php-x64\composer\composer.json file and manually add the cakephp-sniffer package so it looks like this:

{
    "require": {
        "squizlabs/php_codesniffer": "*",
        "cakephp/cakephp-codesniffer": "2.*"
    }
}

Now open a Command Prompt (without elevated permissions) and run the following commands to install the coding standard and make the path known to phcs:

composer global update
phpcs --config-set installed_paths "C:\Program Files\php-x64\composer\vendor\cakephp\cakephp-codesniffer"
phpcs --config-show

There is no need to configure the default coding standard as this will be handled on a per-project basis inside Visual Studio Code but you are free to do so anyways by running:

phpcs --config-set default_standard CakePHP

FYI: all Sniffer settings also in C:\Program Files\php-x64\composer\vendor\squizlabs\php_codesniffer\CodeSniffer.conf

5. Reboot your computer

To be absolutely sure all programs and services are aware of the new environment variables you should now reboot your computer. If you are not using Visual Studio Code you may also skip the rest of this tutorial.

6. Integrating Composer with VSCode

Ioannis Kappas has created a very neat VSCode composer plugin that allows you to lint composer.json files. To set it up:

  1. Open Visual Studio Code

  2. Press CTRL+P

  3. Paste ext install Composer publisher:"Ioannis Kappas"

  4. Install the plugin by clicking that green button

  5. Reload the window by clicking that blue button to activate the plugin

  6. Open the settings window (File > Preferences > Settings)

  7. Add the following line to the USER SETTINGS section:

"composer.executablePath": "c:\\ProgramData\\ComposerSetup\\bin\\composer.bat"

Verify

To verify the plugin is functioning properly:

  • Open a composer.json file in Visual Studio Code

  • Press F1

  • Type validate

  • Select Composer: Validate and pressing enter

  • If things went well you should see something like this:

Screenshot of Composer validation feedback

7. Integrating PHP CodeSniffer with VSCode

The VSCode phpcs plugin is another great add-on by Ioannis Kappas and allows you to check your code against various coding standards. To set ip up:

  1. Open Visual Studio Code

  2. Press CTRL+P

  3. Paste ext install phpcs publisher:"Ioannis Kappas"

  4. Install the plugin by clicking that green button

  5. Reload the window by clicking that blue button to activate the plugin

Please note that code sniffing will be active from this point on.

Configure

Even though you are free to use your own configuration strategy we will configure the plugin to disable code sniffing by default, basically requiring you to enable it on a per project/VSCode workspace basis.

To disable sniffing on the global level:

  1. Open Visual Studio Code

  2. Open the settings window (File > Preferences > Settings)

  3. Add the following line to the USER SETTINGS section:

    "phpcs.enable": false

To enable code sniffing for your project/workspace:

  1. Open Visual Studio Code

  2. Open one of your projects/workspaces

  3. Open the settings window (File > Preferences > Settings)

  4. Add the following lines to the WORKSPACE SETTINGS section:

     "phpcs.enable": true,
 "phpcs.standard": "CakePHP",
 "phpcs.ignore": "config, webroot"

    Please note that the ignore part is optional and that non-existing directories/files will cause errors.

Verify

To verify the plugin is functioning properly:

  1. Open one of your projects with Visual Studio Code

  2. Open one of your .php files

  3. Make a change that will trigger a sniffer violation

  4. Save the file (realtime sniffing not supported yet)

  5. You should see a red tilde (~) explaining the sniff violation when hovered:

Screenshot of phpcs violation when hovering tilde
  1. The Problems window (View > Problems) should display a summary of all phpcs violations:
Screenshot of VSCode Problems window listing phpcs violations