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I have an old project in version 7, which I need to upgrade to the upper version.
I tried by composer.json file. PHP, framework and even the dependencies.
But each the time I see errors.
Sometimes it says you have PHP 8 and the dependency requires PHP 7. And sometimes the dependencies do not support it.
And then it list other dependencies that are not supported.
Am I doing wrong? Is this the only way to upgrade?
It can often be quite tricky to upgrade across multiple versions in one go; you really need to either go step-by-step (v7->v8; v8->v9; v9->v10) changing PHP versions as you go. Or alternatively just make a new project and install the relevant dependencies (with the current versions) and move the relevant applications classes across and modify those classes according to any changes in the API.
Otherwise, consider Laravel Shift.
@webfuelcode That’s upgrading, unfortunately. You need to address each error in turn.
The Laravel docs contain upgrade guides for each major version, so you’ll need to first start off with the 8.x upgrade guide to update from Laravel 7 to Laravel 8: https://laravel.com/docs/8.x/upgrade
During this project, you may find that you need to bump packages (as soon packages may be locked to 7.x) and update them to a version that supports Laravel 8.x. You may even find some packages have been abandoned. Unfortunately you either need to fork them and add Laravel 8+ support yourself, or pick an alternative package for your use case.
Different Laravel versions will also require different PHP versions. The newer the Laravel version, the newer the PHP version it will require. So Laravel 7 requires either PHP 7.2.5 or PHP 8.0 (https://github.com/laravel/laravel/blob/7.x/composer.json#L11). Laravel 8 requires PHP 7.3 or 8.0 (https://github.com/laravel/laravel/blob/8.x/composer.json#L8). So you should be updating your PHP version as you update the Laravel version.
Once you have upgraded to 8, you will need to do the same process for upgrading 8 to 9. And then again for 9 to 10. Depending on how long this takes you, you will also need to do it again for 10 to 11, as Laravel 11 is scheduled for release in Q1 2024 (https://laravel.com/docs/10.x/releases#support-policy).
This is why it’s a good idea to update Laravel versions soon after the version releases. It’s better to spend a little time updating one version, rather than waiting until you’re 4 or 5 versions behind, and the task becomes much more intensive as not only do you have to worry about updating Laravel, but you now have to worry about PHP versions and ancient versions of third-party packages.
I usually start a new project and migrate (copy) M-V-C and custom classes over.
But either way will take a little time. But check for correct dependencies, seems everyone skips this part.
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