The command line installer adds files to the traditional /usr/local directory, while the MacPorts package manager adds the files to /opt/local.

And from there, troubles arose.

The truth is, I’d forgotten about the /usr/local pear install, until I’d noticed something peculiar trying to setup a Symfony project I’m working on. Attempting to run one of its command line tasks, I got a fatal error from PHP, reading:

  [#!shell]
  $ ./symfony cc

  Warning: require_once(/opt/local/lib/php/symfony/autoload/sfCoreAutoload.class.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /Users/yanni/Sites/Hosts/breadbreaker.dev/config/ProjectConfiguration.class.php on line 3

  Fatal error: require_once(): Failed opening required '/opt/local/lib/php/symfony/autoload/sfCoreAutoload.class.php' (include_path='.:/opt/local/lib/php') in /Users/yanni/Sites/Hosts/breadbreaker.dev/config/ProjectConfiguration.class.php on line 3

The file paths for the require statement in the ProjectConfiguration.class.php file were generated on my home computer, which was configured to use the MacPorts pear, which installs Symfony at /opt/local/lib/php.

So I thought to check which pear installation I was using:

  [#!shell]
  $ which pear
  /opt/local/bin/pear

Huh. That’s… actually (correctly) the MacPorts one. Next, I thought to check where my Symfony package was installed:

  [#!shell]
  $ which symfony
  /usr/local/bin/symfony

“Ah!” I thought with relief at the promise of closure, “It’s using a version of Symfony I’d installed before I’d installed MacPorts’ pear.” Then I thought I’d confirm that I still had the old version of pear laying around:

  [#!shell]
  $ find /usr/local -name pear
  /usr/local/bin/pear
  /usr/local/share/pear
  /usr/local/share/pear/pear.old/symfony/plugins/sfPropelPlugin/lib/vendor/propel-generator/pear
  /usr/local/share/pear/symfony/plugins/sfPropelPlugin/lib/vendor/propel-generator/pear

I’d found it. I only wanted to keep a single version of pear libraries on my system (under MacPorts), so I proceeded to uninstall the Symfony package from /usr/local and install it explicitly into MacPorts’ own /opt/local.

  [#!shell]
  $ sudo /usr/local/bin/pear uninstall symfony/symfony
  uninstall ok: channel://pear.symfony-project.com/symfony-1.1.3

  $ sudo /opt/local/bin/pear install symfony/symfony
  downloading symfony-1.2.8.tgz ...
  Starting to download symfony-1.2.8.tgz (2,695,461 bytes)
  ..........................done: 2,695,461 bytes
  install ok: channel://pear.symfony-project.com/symfony-1.2.8

I then proceeded to confirm that Symfony was now installed somewhere within the /opt/local directory branch:

  [#!shell]
  $ which symfony
  /usr/local/bin/symfony

It wasn’t. I then tried to rename the pear files in /usr/local so that they wouldn’t be found, but that didn’t work either. I Googled far and wide, and found my lead in the Pear Documentation website’s article about shared hosting.

I had configured my .pearrc file to explicitly look for installed pear libraries in /usr/local. This setting was even being honored by the pear in /opt/local.

I renamed my ~/.pearrc file to ~/.pearrc.old and attempted to install the Symfony package again. Pear complained about an unknown installation source, which meant I had to “discover” Symfony’s pear channel. Once I’d done this, Symfony installed to the correct location!

Finally, I just dumped the old pear installation under /usr/local and the file now named ~/.pearrc.old, and was fully transitioned to the MacPorts pear.

How do you like them apples?

Lessons

• Ensure that you’re executing the correct pear script (on Unix, use which to determine absolute path of the script being used)
• Verify that your php.ini file has got the correct pear installation path in its include path.
• If you encounter some wonkiness with the inclusion of pear libraries, make sure there isn’t some .pearrc file with vestigial configuration settings messing with you.