How can we help people who want to use this project with PHP 5.6?
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I came to this project because my local machine has PHP 7.1 and I had a need to run a client site within PHP 5.6 for troubleshooting and development. I made these changes to the code here and was able to build a CiviCRM site within a container running PHP 5.6. Yay!
Now I'm wondering what the best way would be to help other people who might be in this same situation.
Ideas:
- Maintain a separate branch in this repo
- Add some documentation which tells people how to manually make the changes I made
Curious what other ideas people have. It didn't take me too long to figure out how to make these changes, but it did require some basic understanding of Docker. And I really like the idea of other people being able to use this project without having too much understanding of Docker.
Hi Sean,
Thanks for trying it out and feeding back with this issue - appreciated :)
Some thoughts and things I did in response.
I moved the pecl extensions to their own RUN statement after the calls to docker-php-ext. Deciding on your RUN statement granularity is an art, apparently 🎨, but this seemed appropriate.
I had a quick google on the printf "\n" | syntax and it looks like a way to accept defaults. I wondered why this was necessary in 5.6 but not in 7.0. I tested it locally with 5.6 (using a seperate RUN statment) and I did not need to add the statements. In other words, you shouldn't have needed to add the printf statements. Maybe something for you to investigate a bit more if you feel like it?.
One thing that did barf for me was the xdebug version. It seems like we do need to specify a compatible version for php5 (which seems a bit sub-optimal - I wonder why it doesn't just select the most recent compatible version).
So how do we handle different versions and the different steps needed for each? I think there are two sides to this question. The Dockerfile side and the docker-compose side.
Dockerfile
If you take a look at the docker hub php page, you will see lots of options, or tags, as Docker likes to call them.
I think the Docker solution to this problem is to create various tags for the buildkit image that specify the php version that they come with, e.g. :php7 and :php5. Notice on the php image set that 5 is a shorthand for 5.6, which is a shorthand for 5.6.something.
In terms of how we produce different versions, I am fairly sure that templating is the solution. The official Docker PHP repo uses gawk and sed. Since I am not that hard-core, and we are a PHP community, I thought that Twig would be a good option. I put together a first draft automated publisher. It is a little rough and ready but fit for purpose and we can improve it as necessary.
I really like the idea of other people being able to use this project without having too much understanding of Docker.
Yeah, I agree. A basic understanding is required. I am trying to address common gotchas in the readme but not replicate Docker basics. If we can make CiviCRM more cloud native, there will be less gotchas.
Aside: There is a whole other debate about whether we should be distributing multiple versions of civicrm images based on different php versions (instead of just choosing one supported php version for a specific version of civicrm). I don't know the answer. I think there is more than one answer. To some extent it depends on whether you are talking about 'a single civicrm site' or civicrm-buildkit. There are other things it depends on as well ...
Neat. Thanks again for all you're doing here, Michael! Some of the stuff you're talking about is a little over my head so I'm just absorbing bits and pieces. Overall I'll defer to you on the best way to handle all of this, even if that means avoiding the hassle of dealing with PHP 5.6.
Regarding printf "\n" | ... yeah, when I was troubleshooting, I threw that in there so that the pecl command wouldn't need any interaction, but I wasn't sure it was actually necessary. Fine to leave it out. It's a bit of a mystery to me how those RUN statements are able to execute when they require interaction, but it's one of the many things I'm not going to try and fully understand at the moment.
Regarding this ticket... feel free to close. If anyone asks about PHP 5.6 you could just point them here. Or it might be nice to add a paragraph to the main README that explains the steps someone would need to take to get a PHP 5.6 environment. Up to you. I just don't want to create too much more work for you!
Neat. Thanks again for all you're doing here, Michael!
No problem.
even if that means avoiding the hassle of dealing with PHP 5.6
It wasn't a hassle. We now have containers for PHP5.6, and 7.{0,1,2}- :)
Regarding printf "\n" | ... yeah, when I was troubleshooting, I threw that in there so that the pecl command wouldn't need any interaction, but I wasn't sure it was actually necessary. Fine to leave it out. It's a bit of a mystery to me how those RUN statements are able to execute when they require interaction, but it's one of the many things I'm not going to try and fully understand at the moment.
Lots of CLI commands can detect if they are running in interactive mode and will not ask questions / for confirmation if they are not.
Or it might be nice to add a paragraph to the main README that explains the steps someone would need to take to get a PHP 5.6 environment. Up to you. I just don't want to create too much more work for you!
Done: https://github.com/michaelmcandrew/civicrm-buildkit-docker#using-different-versions-of-php