How to set up PHP for use in a GitHub Action

To use PHP in a GitHub action there’s the magnificent setup-php action. It also allows for installing extensions and setting several php.ini directives.

steps:
- name: Checkout
  uses: actions/checkout@v1

- name: Setup PHP
  uses: shivammathur/setup-php@v1
  with:
    php-version: '7.4'
    extensions: mbstring, intl #optional, setup extensions
    ini-values: post_max_size=256M, short_open_tag=On #optional, setup php.ini configuration
    coverage: xdebug #optional, setup coverage driver
    pecl: false #optional, setup PECL

Here’s an example that uses a build matrix:

jobs:
  run:    
    runs-on: ${{ matrix.operating-system }}
    strategy:      
      matrix:
        operating-system: [ubuntu-latest, windows-latest, macOS-latest]
        php-versions: ['7.0', '7.1', '7.2', '7.3', '7.4']
    name: PHP ${{ matrix.php-versions }} Test on ${{ matrix.operating-system }}
    steps:
    - name: Checkout
      uses: actions/checkout@v1

    - name: Setup PHP
      uses: shivammathur/setup-php@v1
      with:
        php-version: ${{ matrix.php-versions }}
        extensions: mbstring, intl #optional, setup extensions
        ini-values: post_max_size=256M, short_open_tag=On #optional, setup php.ini configuration
        coverage: xdebug #optional, setup coverage driver
        pecl: false #optional, setup PECL

When building against a matrix, the documentation recommends to cache composer data to speed up the process.

shivammathur/setup-php →