PHP Cookbook

21.1. Using the PEAR Package Manager

Problem

You want to use the PEAR package manager, pear. This allows you to install new packages, and upgrade and get information about your existing PEAR packages.

Solution

To execute a command with the PEAR package manager, type the command name as the first argument on the command line:

% pear 
               command

Discussion

Here’s how to list all installed PEAR packages with the list command:^[19]

% pear list
Installed packages:
=  ==  ==  ==  ==  ==  ==  ==  ==  ==
+-----------------+----------+--------+
| Package         | Version  | State  |
| Archive_Tar     | 0.9      | stable |
| Console_Getopt  | 0.11     | beta   |
| DB              | 1.3      | stable |
| HTTP            | 1.2      | stable |
| Mail            | 1.0.1    | stable |
| Mail_Mime       | 1.2.1    | stable |
| Net_SMTP        | 1.0      | stable |
| Net_Socket      | 1.0.1    | stable |
| Net_URL         | 1.0.4    | stable |
| PEAR            | 0.91-dev | beta   |
| XML_Parser      | 1.0      | stable |
| XML_RPC         | 1.0.3    | stable |
+-----------------+----------+--------+

For a list of all valid PEAR commands, use list-commands . Many commands also have abbreviated names; for example, list is also just l. These names are usually the first few letters of the command name. See Table 21-1 for a list of frequently used commands.

Table 21-1. PEAR package manager commands

Command name	Shortcut	Description
install	i	Download and install packages
upgrade	up	Upgrade installed packages
uninstall	un	Remove installed packages
list	l	List installed packages
list-upgrades	lu	List all available upgrades ...