Download the PHP package jbzoo/composer-diff without Composer

JBZoo / Composer-Diff

A powerful CLI tool for visualizing changes in Composer dependencies after running composer update. Compare two composer.lock files and see exactly what packages were added, removed, upgraded, or downgraded with beautiful output formatting and direct links to changelogs.

Table of Contents

• Features
• Installation
  • Via Composer (Recommended)
  • Standalone PHAR
• Basic Usage
• Help Description
• Output Examples
  • Default view (--output=console)
  • Markdown Output (--output=markdown)
  • JSON Output (--output=json)
• Advanced Usage
  • Compare Specific Files
  • Environment Filtering
  • Output Formatting
  • Real-world Examples
• Requirements
• Architecture
  • Change Detection Logic
  • Supported Git Platforms
• Development
  • Setup
  • Testing
  • Building PHAR
• Roadmap
• License
• See Also

Features

• Visual Dependency Tracking: See exactly what changed after composer update with color-coded output
• Multiple Output Formats: Console tables, Markdown for PRs, or JSON for automation and CI/CD pipelines
• Smart Version Detection: Automatically detects upgrades, downgrades, new, removed, and changed packages
• Direct Links to Changes: Generates comparison URLs for GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket repositories
• Environment Filtering: Compare production (require) and development (require-dev) dependencies separately or together
• Git Integration: Compare current lock file with any git reference (HEAD, branches, tags)
• Dev Package Support: Handles dev branches with commit hash detection and comparison
• CI/CD Friendly: Perfect for automated workflows, deployment pipelines, and Pull Request automation
• PHAR Distribution: Standalone executable or Composer installation options

Installation

Via Composer (Recommended)

Standalone PHAR

Basic Usage

Help Description

Output Examples

Default view (--output=console)

Rendered in your terminal:

Also, see colored example in travis-ci

Markdown Output (--output=markdown)

Source code:

Rendered in your readme or PR/MR description:

JSON Output (--output=json)

Advanced Usage

Compare Specific Files

Environment Filtering

Output Formatting

Real-world Examples

Requirements

• PHP: ^8.2
• Extensions: ext-json, ext-filter
• Composer: ^2.0 (for development)

Architecture

The tool is built with a clean, object-oriented architecture:

• DiffAction: Main CLI command handler (Symfony Console)
• Comparator: Orchestrates comparison between composer.lock files
• ComposerLock: Parses and manages composer.lock data
• Package: Represents individual packages with version handling
• Diff: Compares package versions and determines change types
• Url: Generates comparison URLs for Git hosting platforms
• Renderers: Multiple output formats (Console, Markdown, JSON)

Change Detection Logic

The tool intelligently categorizes changes:

• New: Package added to dependencies
• Removed: Package removed from dependencies
• Upgraded: Semantic version increased (1.0.0 → 2.0.0)
• Downgraded: Semantic version decreased (2.0.0 → 1.0.0)
• Changed: Dev branches with different commit hashes
• Same: No changes (filtered out by default)

Supported Git Platforms

Automatically generates comparison URLs for:

• GitHub: github.com/user/repo/compare/v1.0.0...v2.0.0
• GitLab: gitlab.com/user/repo/compare/v1.0.0...v2.0.0
• Bitbucket: bitbucket.org/user/repo/branches/compare/v1.0.0%0Dv2.0.0

Development

Setup

Testing

Building PHAR

Roadmap

• [ ] Supporting Drupal repos. For example.
• [ ] Add action in the composer via API like composer lock-diff.
• [ ] Fixes the same issue with complex/custom name of tag.
• [ ] Auto-detecting alias name of branch.
• [ ] No warp links for Markdown format.
• [ ] (?) Support MS Windows...

Unit tests and check code style

License

MIT

See Also

• CI-Report-Converter - Converting different error reports for deep compatibility with popular CI systems.
• Composer-Graph - Dependency graph visualization of composer.json based on mermaid-js.
• Mermaid-PHP - Generate diagrams and flowcharts with the help of the mermaid script language.
• Utils - Collection of useful PHP functions, mini-classes, and snippets for every day.
• Image - Package provides object-oriented way to manipulate with images as simple as possible.
• Data - Extended implementation of ArrayObject. Use files as config/array.
• Retry - Tiny PHP library providing retry/backoff functionality with multiple backoff strategies and jitter support.
• SimpleTypes - Converting any values and measures - money, weight, exchange rates, length, ...

Special thanks to the project davidrjonas/composer-lock-diff which inspired me to make a great utility :)