Laravel 6+7 composer create-project fails on PHP 8.1

[asgrim]

• Laravel Version: 6.20.43 and 7.30.6
• PHP Version: 8.1.1 (applies to any 8.1.* series)
• Database Driver & Version: n/a

Description:

Installing Laravel 6 or 7 using PHP 8.1 fails, using either of the two following commands:

# Try using Laravel 6
$ composer create-project laravel/laravel:6.* test-app-6 --prefer-dist

# Try using Laravel 7
$ composer create-project laravel/laravel:7.* test-app-7 --prefer-dist

The PHP version constraint is set to ^7.2.5|^8.0 for Laravel 6 and 7, which suggests both versions are installable on PHP 8.1. This does not appear to be the case. My suspicion is that Laravel 6 and 7 were never intended to support PHP 8.1 - especially, given that Laravel 7 support ended (security - Mar 3, 2021) before PHP 8.1 was even released (Nov 25, 2021).

However, unfortunately, since these releases have already been tagged with a version constraint that is not "true", this cannot easily be undone. The steps (in isolation) that could be taken to resolve this:

• If PHP 8.1 support was intended, add support to both series for PHP 8.1 so they are installable. I understand this may undesirable since Laravel 7 is not actually supported any more.
• Update the version constraints for both series to something narrower, e.g. ^7.2.5|8.0.*, release a new version for each series, and delete the older tags/releases that are not installable on PHP 8.1. This is also undesirable, since deleting tags is never a good idea. Note: just releasing a new version such as laravel/laravel:6.20.2 with a constraint of php:^7.2.5|8.0.* is not enough; because Composer will still pick laravel/laravel:6.20.1 since it advertises compatibility with PHP 8.1.
• A combination of the above; I know Laravel 7 is not supported (so doing nothing is likely an acceptable strategy). However, Laravel 6 is in "LTS" support, so should be actioned one way or another I think.

Neither are ideal solutions, and I know this discussion has been had multiple times on Twitter (which always ends well 😆).

A general ecosystem idea comes to mind; perhaps a way to mark a version as "unsupported" on Packagist; this would mean the version can be installed with composer install, but is excluded from any further composer update. This IMO is better than deleting tags; it means someone using an older version, they can still install the version they were using, but if they do a composer update it will either stay on the existing version, or update to a newer compatible release, if available. I've not done enough thought on that to work out if it is actually viable though.

Steps To Reproduce:

• Install PHP 8.1
• Run either composer create-project laravel/laravel:6.* test-app-6 --prefer-dist or composer create-project laravel/laravel:7.* test-app-6 --prefer-dist

[asgrim]

Sorry, forgot to attach the output; it is rather long, so I put them both in a gist: https://gist.github.com/asgrim/221090b8c22129dd2a6d57eb48a0d658

[driesvints]

Hi @asgrim, Laravel 6 & 7 don't support PHP 8.1, please see https://laravel.com/docs/8.x/releases#support-policy

We unfortunately won't be changing anything here. Thank you for your suggestions though 👍

[asgrim]

Thanks @driesvints that helps 👍 It's a shame your PR #39163 didn't go through as that would've helped things going forward, but I appreciate the feedback. I'll exclude Laravel 6 + 7 from our build matrix on PHP 8.1. Cheers & have a great day!