Using a different PHP version to compile Magento project

Question

I have a site running Magento-CE-2.1.5 in a ubuntu server.

I have 2 PHP versions running alongside:

1. PHP 7.0.18
2. PHP 7.1.6.

Each time i try to setup Magento it shows PHP version 7.0.18 but the real problem is that I need to make few changes and compile the projects.

At the time of compiling, the Magento PHP command uses PHP version 7.1.6. How can i make the project use PHP version 7.0.18 during compilation?

I have PHP 7.1.6 version as it was required by a Laravel site running PHP 7.1.6.

Answer 1

Depending upon how you installed the different PHP versions (e.g. using ondrej's PPA to install 5.6/7.0/7.1 or compiling from source) you should have two separate "php" executables under /usr/bin or /usr/local/bin. I use the PPA and it provides the following executables for me:

• /usr/bin/php5.6
• /usr/bin/php7.0
• /usr/bin/php7.1

To run the bin/magento command using a specific version of PHP, just call that specific version of the executable followed by bin/magento <command>. For example:

php5.6 bin/magento setup:di:compile php7.0 bin/magento setup:di:compile

Also if you're using the PPA and providing multiple versions of one package, you could look to see if /usr/bin/php links to /etc/alternatives/php. If so, then you can do sudo update-alternatives --config php and select which one /usr/bin/php will use, thus allowing you to just use php to be running whichever you choose (on the command-line).

Answer 2

You can modify the path variable to match to version of php that you want to run.

php -v 
set PATH="/usr/bin/php7.0:$PATH"
php -v

Note that I assume you php7.0 is under /usr/bin/php7.0 but that can easily be changed base on where your system stores it's files.

Also on some systems you will be able to find php, php7.0 and php7.1 commands on the CLI