Laravel upgrade to 4.2 - mcrypt extension required

Question

I have problems when trying to update laravel 4.1 to 4.2.

I started that project on ubuntu, then got a new macbook pro and it looks like I'm missing something.

I'm using XAMPP 1.8.3

When I

composer update

I get the following error

Mcrypt PHP extension required.
Script php artisan clear-compiled handling the post-update-cmd event returned with an error

After few googling, found homebrew, then it's easy

brew install mcrypt

but I get the following warning

Warning: mcrypt-2.6.8 already installed

Any ideas?

Answer 1

Assuming your macbook pro is running Mavericks, the problem is most likely in your $PATH variable. The php command defaults to the built in php that ships with your mac. You can verify this by entering in terminal echo $PATH;

If it points to /usr/bin:/bin/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin then the problem is here because the native mac php does not include mcrypt. Add your XAMP PHP to your paths variable should solve the problem,

export PATH=$PATH:\path\to\xamp\bin\php5.ver\bin