To update PHP to version 8 on MacOS try the following commands:
brew update
And then:
brew upgrade php
If it doesn’t work for you, you may not have it installed on your Mac, I recommend it.
If what comes out is Error: php not installed then you will have to install PHP.
brew install php
Normally it will install the latest version of PHP, but you can tell it which version you want with:
brew install php@8.0
Or a more modern version:
brew install php@8.1
If you come from an older version of PHP, it is possible that even if you install PHP 8, version 7.x will still run on your machine. To set the version of PHP you want to run you can run this command.
brew link –force php@8.0
To restart PHP
brew services restart php@8.0
If you still can’t get your php to update in the CLI (command line terminal) check if you have any older PHP installation taking precedence. You can try to see if in the PATH you have any PHP route that is declared and therefore is being executed.
On modern MacOS you may have modified the PATH in the .zshrc file that is in your user’s folder.
you can also do
which php
To find out where the PHP executable that is being used is… to see if it corresponds to the path that it should.
I get this output:
/usr/local/bin/php
If you go to the /usr/local/bin folder you can see the symlink you have to your PHP file running in the CLI. I get this:
php -> ../Cellar/php/8.1.4/bin/php
That symlink makes php 8.1.4 run. You change it with the command I mentioned before:
brew link –force php
But you can also do it by hand with this help for .