For managing dependencies,
Laravel uses Composer. Make sure you have a Composer installed on your system before you install Laravel.
- If you not have Composer installed, visit the following URL and download composer to install it on your system:
//getcomposer.org/download/
Installing Laravel in XAMPP
I use XAMPP for PHP-MySQL applications, so I install laravel in XAMPP.
I have XAMPP installed on Windows, in "E:/xampp/" folder.
1. To install Laravel, use
composer in the CMD (
Command Line Interface). To open the Command Line Interface in windows, press the Start button and write "
cmd" in the search field.
2. In the command line interface window I navigate to the "
E:/xampp/htdocs/" folder, where I want to create a Laravel project for tests, called "
lrvt", I write this command, then press Enter:
composer create-project laravel/laravel lrvt dev-develop
In the "
E:/xampp/htdocs/" directory, the composer will create a folder called "lrvt" with the Laravel framework, upcoming version. The "
dev-develop" instruction specifies to install the next upcoming version, which is in development state.
To create a Laravel project with the current stable version, use the "
–-prefer-dist" instruction:
composer create-project –-prefer-dist laravel/laravel project_name
- Or, just the "create-project" command, with nothing after the project_name (you can use any project name, i used "lrvt"):
composer create-project laravel/laravel project_name
At this point, I have a working installation of Laravel on the local host.
Testing Laravel project
To test the integrity of the installation with XAMPP, I start the XAMPP, then, in browser I go to:
localhost/lrvt/public/
It will display a page like in this image:
- Alternatively, you can use the PHP's Built-in Web Server. In Command Line Interface navigate to the directory with Laravel project, then initialize the following instruction in command line interface:
php artisan serve
After executing the above command, you will see a screen as shown below:
Now, point your browser to:
http://localhost:8000
- When you want to stop the server, press
Ctrl-C.
If you want a port other than default 8000, just specify it with "
--port" command.
php artisan serve --port=8080
If you get an error like: "
RuntimeException No application encryption key has been specified.", you have to generate an
APP_KEY in the ".env" file.
- If the root directory of your project doesn’t contain the
.env file then rename the "
.env.example" to "
.env" file.
Execute the following command where you have installed Laravel.
php artisan key:generate
The newly generated key can be seen in the .env file.
If you use laravel on Linux /Unix system, set the write permission for the directory storage and bootstrap/cache.
To know the laravel installed version, run this command, with command line interface, in the directory where you installed laravel:
php artisan --version
Or, check it manually from the file:
your-project-folder/vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Foundation/Application.php
const VERSION = '5.5-dev'; //version of laravel