Composer running out of memory on every project, Mac OS X

Question

I attempted to install `aws/aws-sdk-php` yesterday on one of my Laravel 4 projects using Composer, I cannot remember exactly the chain of events but it did not install successfully. Ever since, I have been receiving errors that Composer has run out of memory - `Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 536870912 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 32 bytes) in phar:///usr/local/bin/composer/src/Composer/DependencyResolver/RuleWatchGraph.php on line 52`. I increased the php.ini `memory_limit` to -1 and this still occurs, both in my development and production environments (production is Cent OS 6). Installation completes successfully if I increase the `memory_limit` via the CLI when I run `composer_update` but it takes an eternity. Is there some sort of cache that I need to clear to prevent Composer for running out of memory? I have a feeling that it is still trying to install the AWS SDK every time I run composer update. Composer file ``` { "name": "laravel/laravel", "description": "The Larav…

Accepted Answer

EDIT: Before going any further always make sure you're running the latest version of composer, you can update it via `composer self-update`

When you run `composer update` it will calculate the most up-to-date gitref for each of your libraries (or the latest release) and then will install that version of the library. It will then store these versions in the `composer.lock` file.

When you run `composer install`, it simply installs the versions defined in the `composer.lock` file.

The reason `composer update` takes so long and uses so much memory is because it has to trace every library's version, compare it with the version you have defined in your `composer.json` and then check all of that library's dependencies. This is quite an intensive process.

I find that running composer using `hhvm` (you can install it here) speeds up the `composer update` process massively.

Short of that, you just have to live with the high memory usage and increase it in your `php.ini` file. Make sure you update the one that is relevant for your CLI.

EDIT: You should never run `composer update` in the production environment. You should only update your dependencies when you're developing, and then use `composer install` to install your last used set of composer dependencies when you're in a production environment.

Composer running out of memory on every project, Mac OS X

Solution

Problem