Composer: how to install `dev` packages in Symfony 2.3?

Question

Trying to install the KnpGaufretteBundle in a Symfony 2.3 project, I'm having no luck. The problem is:

1. minimum-stability:stable (in composer.json);
2. the bundle I require is dev-master version still.

Reading this in the Symfony docs was frustrating:

If you know of a cool bundle or PHP library that still requires a dev minimum stability, talk to the lead developer and convince him to tag a stable release.

I'm not changing the minimum stability of the whole project to dev, as it would certainly make a huge mess - I mean, can't I use stable packages and dev packages side by side?

Am I missing something about composer maybe?

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Edit (14 August 2013)

According to Sven's answer below, I've edited my composer.json (you can find it here) and it started to work. Anyway, this is a partial solution, because inline aliases do not work for dependencies - so in my case I'd have to specify all dependencies of "less-than-stable" packages first, and alias them one by one.

Answer 1

just use

"knplabs/knp-gaufrette-bundle": "dev-master@dev" 

if you need the latest dev version

you can also change minimum-stability to dev and add "prefer-stable": true like this:

"minimum-stability": "dev",
"prefer-stable": true,

then composer will always try to find a stable version and if nothing found install dev, so your symfony packages will be still stable. But in your case composer will install v0.1.4 (latest stable of knplabs/knp-gaufrette-bundle), so you need dev-master@dev anyway. prefer-stable is just a hint for you.

Answer 2

Have a look at aliases: http://getcomposer.org/doc/articles/aliases.md

They are supposed to allow you to address a branch (which by definition is always in development, because you can only access the latest commit) in a way that that branch should be the logical extension of a version tag.

For a yet untagged project, a proper assumed tag version would be like "0.0.0".

You should try the inline alias for the bundle.