How to use different PHP versions on OSX with Apache and Homebrew

February 4th, 2015

Warning: This post is 9 years old. Some of this information may be out of date.

By default Apple's OSX (Mavericks) comes with PHP 5.4 installed but if you want to work on a different version you're pretty stuck.

My solution to this is to use homebrew to install PHP5.3, 5.4, 5.5 and 5.6 and then simply change the PHP module loaded by apache. Here's how to do it.

Step 1: Install Homebrew

Go to http://brew.sh/ and follow the instructions.

Step 2: Install the different PHP versions

    $ brew install php53 
      ... stuff happens for a while
    
    $ brew install php54
      ... stuff happens for a while
    
    $ brew install php55
      ... stuff happens for a while
    
    $ brew install php56
      ... stuff happens for a while    

You may also need to install version specific PHP modules. To find these you should use homebrew's search feature. For example, to install the Mcrypt module:

    $ brew search php5 | grep mcrypt                                                                               
    php53-mcrypt
    php54-mcrypt
    php55-mcrypt
    php56-mcrypt

Install these for the PHP version you need (or all of them is so required)

    $ brew install php53-mcrypt php54-mcrypt php55-mcrypt php56-mcrypt

Step 3: Switching PHP versions for command line usage

Note: If you only develop in the browser you don't need to do this, you can simply switch the Apache PHP modules as show in step 4.

To switch between versions you should use the link and unlink features of homebrew. For example, to switch from the current PHP version to php5.5:

    $ php -v
    PHP 5.4.35 (cli) (built: Dec  4 2014 12:37:20)
    Copyright (c) 1997-2014 The PHP Group
    Zend Engine v2.4.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2014 Zend Technologies
    
    $ brew unlink php54
    Unlinking /usr/local/Cellar/php54/5.4.35... 38 symlinks removed
    
    $ brew link php55
    Linking /usr/local/Cellar/php55/5.5.20... 38 symlinks created
    
    $ php -v
    PHP 5.5.20 (cli) (built: Feb  4 2015 14:15:18)
    Copyright (c) 1997-2014 The PHP Group
    Zend Engine v2.5.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2014 Zend Technologies
        with Xdebug v2.2.5, Copyright (c) 2002-2014, by Derick Rethans

Step 4: Using different PHP version in Apache

Edit /etc/apache2/httpd.conf and look for the line that loads the PHP module. On my installation this is around line 120. Duplicate the current line and change the path to the module for the version of PHP yopu want to use. Comment out the other versions (using the hash key '#'). Here's my current Apache config file:

    119
    120 # LoadModule php5_module libexec/apache2/libphp5.so
    121 # LoadModule php5_module /usr/local/Cellar/php53/5.3.29/libexec/apache2/libphp5.so
    122 LoadModule php5_module /usr/local/Cellar/php54/5.4.36/libexec/apache2/libphp5.so
    123 # LoadModule php5_module /usr/local/Cellar/php55/5.5.20/libexec/apache2/libphp5.so
    124 # LoadModule php5_module /usr/local/Cellar/php56/5.6.4/libexec/apache2/libphp5.so
    125 

As you can see, it is currently set to use PHP5.4.36.

Once you've set up the module you want, you will need to restart the Apache Web Server:

     sudo apachectl restart

Verify this is correct by creating a PHP file in your web root with the call to phpinfo() and then visiting the page:

    <?php
    phpinfo()