Trying to open a PHP application locally

Question

I'm trying to open a CakePHP application locally that had a composer.phar file but did not have composer.json file.

I created a default composer.json file, went into the app & console folders and tried to use bin/cake server to open the application but it shows bash: bin/cake: no such file or directory.

I am pretty sure there is one file that I need to open that will open the whole program, is there a certain file I should be looking for? Am I missing a step?

Answer 1

Without a composer.json file you cannot run composer.phar install to install all the dependencies.

So you have to proceed with a "try and fail" approach.

First of all, create the default composer.json file required to run a standard installation of CakePHP and install with composer.phar install.

Then check the App class and look for third party packages: add them to the composer.json file and update.

Then start using the application and read the exceptions: there you will find info about other required dependencies. Add them to the composer.json file and then update.

This may take some time to be done but in the end you will have again a working application.

Except if private packages are required: in this case you will have hard times.

Hope this can help you! In bocca al lupo!