System or local when installing PEAR for PHPUnit

Question

I am using XAMPP 1.8.1. I need to write code with PHPUnit. When I try to install PEAR using command prompt, I get the message below:

Are you installing a system-wide PEAR or a local copy?

Could some one suggest which option I should use? Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

PEAR is usually installed system-wide. The benefit of this is that the various packages can be reused between different projects.

One reason why you might install a local copy of PEAR is that the administrator[s] of the server you are installing on might be reluctant to install additional packages or upgrade existing ones.

By performing a local install of PEAR you can choose the location of where the PEAR installer places the packages/PEAR code that you install.

So, another reason for installing local, even multiple, copies of PEAR is to have separate installs for each project you might be working on, though using Composer in this scenario is much more common place.

Naturally if you do install a local copy of PEAR then you will need to adjust your include-path accordingly.