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Packagist.org: what does it mean when a package has a version number like: 4.4.x-dev?

When browsing the packagist.org repositories you see packages with these version numbers e.g. If you look at the Phpunit repo

There are a few instances

  • 4.5.x-dev
  • 4.3.x-dev
  • 4.2.x-dev

Do these packages contain the current work the developers are performing towards basic updates, security and bugfixes etc on an otherwise basically stable package?

Solution

  • These are the dev branches. These are unstable and contain bug fixes, etc. This will eventually be released as 4.5.8 for instance (if the library is still supported).

    You can get it by using 4.5.x-dev or 4.5.*@dev as version constraint.