Invalid version string "^7.0"

[janholusa]

Environment:

composer -V
Composer version 2.5.1 2022-12-22 15:33:54

$ composer show | grep flex
symfony/flex                            v2.2.4    Composer plugin for Symfony

Issue

Attempt to composer install afterwards vendor folder exists ends up with Invalid version string "^7.0"

$ composer install -vvvv
Running 2.5.1 (2022-12-22 15:33:54) with PHP 8.1.14 on Linux / 6.0.0-6-amd64
Reading ./composer.json (/home/user/Documents//project.backend/project-app/composer.json)
Loading config file /home/user/.config/composer/config.json
Loading config file /home/user/.config/composer/auth.json
Loading config file ./composer.json (/home/user/Documents//project.backend/project-app/composer.json)
Checked CA file /etc/pki/tls/certs/ca-bundle.crt does not exist or it is not a file.
Checked directory /etc/pki/tls/certs/ca-bundle.crt does not exist or it is not a directory.
Checked CA file /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt: valid
Failed to initialize global composer: Composer could not find the config file: /home/user/.config/composer/composer.json

Reading /home/user/Documents//project.backend/project-app/vendor/composer/installed.json
Loading plugin PackageVersions\Installer (from composer/package-versions-deprecated)
Loading plugin Symfony\Flex\Flex (from symfony/flex)
Reading ./composer.lock (/home/user/Documents//project.backend/project-app/composer.lock)
Installing dependencies from lock file (including require-dev)
Verifying lock file contents can be installed on current platform.
Reading ./composer.lock (/home/user/Documents//project.backend/project-app/composer.lock)
> pre-pool-create: Symfony\Flex\Flex->truncatePackages
Reading /home/user/.cache/composer/repo/flex/symfony-recipes-flex-main-index.json from cache
Reading /home/user/.cache/composer/repo/flex/symfony-recipes-contrib-flex-main-index.json from cache
Downloading https://raw.githubusercontent.com/symfony/recipes/flex/main/index.json
Downloading https://raw.githubusercontent.com/symfony/recipes-contrib/flex/main/index.json
[304] https://raw.githubusercontent.com/symfony/recipes-contrib/flex/main/index.json
[304] https://raw.githubusercontent.com/symfony/recipes/flex/main/index.json
Built pool.
Generating rules
Resolving dependencies through SAT
Looking at all rules.

Dependency resolution completed in 0.000 seconds
> pre-operations-exec: Symfony\Flex\Flex->recordOperations

In VersionParser.php line 186:
                                 
  [UnexpectedValueException]     
  Invalid version string "^7.0"  
                                 

Exception trace:
  at phar:///usr/local/bin/composer/vendor/composer/semver/src/VersionParser.php:186
 Composer\Semver\VersionParser->normalize() at /home/user/Documents//project.backend/project-app/vendor/symfony/flex/src/Flex.php:279
 Symfony\Flex\Flex->recordOperations() at phar:///usr/local/bin/composer/src/Composer/EventDispatcher/EventDispatcher.php:206
 Composer\EventDispatcher\EventDispatcher->doDispatch() at phar:///usr/local/bin/composer/src/Composer/EventDispatcher/EventDispatcher.php:166
 Composer\EventDispatcher\EventDispatcher->dispatchInstallerEvent() at phar:///usr/local/bin/composer/src/Composer/Installer.php:759
 Composer\Installer->doInstall() at phar:///usr/local/bin/composer/src/Composer/Installer.php:289
 Composer\Installer->run() at phar:///usr/local/bin/composer/src/Composer/Command/InstallCommand.php:146
 Composer\Command\InstallCommand->execute() at phar:///usr/local/bin/composer/vendor/symfony/console/Command/Command.php:298
 Symfony\Component\Console\Command\Command->run() at phar:///usr/local/bin/composer/vendor/symfony/console/Application.php:1040
 Symfony\Component\Console\Application->doRunCommand() at phar:///usr/local/bin/composer/vendor/symfony/console/Application.php:301
 Symfony\Component\Console\Application->doRun() at phar:///usr/local/bin/composer/src/Composer/Console/Application.php:377
 Composer\Console\Application->doRun() at phar:///usr/local/bin/composer/vendor/symfony/console/Application.php:171
 Symfony\Component\Console\Application->run() at phar:///usr/local/bin/composer/src/Composer/Console/Application.php:141
 Composer\Console\Application->run() at phar:///usr/local/bin/composer/bin/composer:88
 require() at /usr/local/bin/composer:29

Seems to be similar to #683

[stof]

The ->normalize() call on that line uses the version info from the symfony.lock file (for each recorded package) as argument.
There is no reason to have ^7.0 in this symfony.lock file as this is not a version but a version constraint.
Try looking at your symfony.lock file and its history to find out when this was introduced in it.

[janholusa]

That was causing the exception. For some reason it contained

    "phpunit/php-code-coverage": {
        "version": "^7.0"
    },

Replacing version string with 9.2.23 solved it.
Thank you!