Errors running composer install

[dwlamb]

I am using composer for the first time for a CodeIgniter project team requires it. At the time I run

composer install

generates:

Failed loading /etc/php/7.4/apache2/conf.d/20-xdebug.ini:  /etc/php/7.4/apache2/conf.d/20-xdebug.ini: invalid ELF header
PHP Parse error:  syntax error, unexpected '|', expecting variable (T_VARIABLE) in /usr/share/php/Composer/IO/BaseIO.php on line 163

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected '|', expecting variable (T_VARIABLE) in /usr/share/php/Composer/IO/BaseIO.php on line 163

How do I reolve these issues? I have been searching for 2 hours and the closest I have come to finding a way to resolve any of these errors is Xdebug impact on Composer which did not enlighten

[javaDeveloperKid]

Please provide Composer version in use as we cannot say what code is in BaseIO::L168.
Please use Composer from a phar release (I can tell you don't because the path in error message does not start withphar://). Using Composer directly from source code is discouraged. Wha'ts more, it would be even worse if this source code was modified (then you're on your own).

[dwlamb]

I may have erred by installing composer using apt package installer. I could not determine anything about composer installed for composer -V and composer about both yielded:

Failed loading /etc/php/7.4/apache2/conf.d/20-xdebug.ini:  /etc/php/7.4/apache2/conf.d/20-x
debug.ini: invalid ELF header                                                              
PHP Parse error:  syntax error, unexpected '|', expecting variable (T_VARIABLE) in /usr/sha
re/php/Composer/IO/BaseIO.php on line 163                                                  
                                                                                           
Parse error: syntax error, unexpected '|', expecting variable (T_VARIABLE) in /usr/share/ph
p/Composer/IO/BaseIO.php on line 163 

I removed composer using apt and attempted to install composer from composer instructions.

Running php -r "copy('https://getcomposer.org/installer', 'composer-setup.php');" I am still encountering an error about xdebug:

Failed loading /etc/php/7.4/apache2/conf.d/20-xdebug.ini:  /etc/php/7.4/apache2/conf.d/20-xdebug.ini: invalid ELF header

I removed 20-xdebug.ini to another directory and apt removed php7.4-xdebug, restarting apache with sudo systemctl restart apache2.

I completed the installation instructions from getcomposer.org and re-implemented xdebug.

If I run php composer.phar I see:

Failed loading /etc/php/7.4/apache2/conf.d/20-xdebug.ini:  /etc/php/7.4/apache2/conf.d/20-xdebug.ini: invalid ELF header

before the rest of Composer's output. The version is 2.6.6 2023-12-08

Can someone share what a proper ELF header is for 20-xdebug.ini? It is a simple text file for the Zend extension.

My php installation is a typical one having used apt command under Ubuntu 22.04. No source code was modified and recompiled.

[fredden]

Do you get the same error when you run PHP with other scripts? For example, php /dev/null should not produce any output, and php -m should give a list of modules and no errors.

[dwlamb]

php /dev/null and php -m both return:

Failed loading /etc/php/7.4/apache2/conf.d/20-xdebug.ini:  /etc/php/7.4/apache2/conf.d/20-xdebug.ini: invalid ELF header

[fredden]

Great. This confirms that particular error (xdebug invalid ELF header) is nothing to do with Composer.

[Seldaek]

This is really weird, there is no | anywhere in BaseIO, either on 1.10 branch nor on main.. So yeah I'd be curious where this even comes from.