How to Install or Upgrade to the Latest, Unreleased Symfony Version

Creating a New Project Based on an Unstable Symfony Version

Suppose that Symfony 2.7 version hasn't been released yet and you want to create a new project to test its features. First, install the Composer package manager. Then, open a command console, enter your project's directory and execute the following command:

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$ composer create-project symfony/framework-standard-edition my_project "2.7.*" --stability=dev

Once the command finishes its execution, you'll have a new Symfony project created in the my_project/ directory and based on the most recent code found in the 2.7 branch.

If you want to test a beta version, use beta as the value of the stability option:

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$ composer create-project symfony/framework-standard-edition my_project "2.7.*" --stability=beta

Upgrading your Project to an Unstable Symfony Version

Suppose again that Symfony 2.7 hasn't been released yet and you want to upgrade an existing application to test that your project works with it.

First, open the composer.json file located in the root directory of your project. Then, edit the value of the version defined for the symfony/symfony dependency as follows:

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{
    "require": {
        "symfony/symfony" : "2.7.*@dev"
    }
}

Finally, open a command console, enter your project directory and execute the following command to update your project dependencies:

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$ composer update symfony/symfony

If you prefer to test a Symfony beta version, replace the "2.7.*@dev" constraint by "2.7.0-beta1" to install a specific beta number or 2.7.*@beta to get the most recent beta version.

After upgrading the Symfony version, read the Symfony Upgrading Guide to learn how you should proceed to update your application's code in case the new Symfony version has deprecated some of its features.

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$ cd projects/my_project/
$ git checkout -b testing_new_symfony
# ... update composer.json configuration
$ composer update symfony/symfony

# ... after testing the new Symfony version
$ git checkout master
$ git branch -D testing_new_symfony