Installing only single package via Composer without updating other packages

Question

I need to install a single composer package into a project - maatwebsite/excel ~2.1.0. Each time composer updates, it updates all packages in composer.json. How can I avoid updating packages aside from the excel library?

I have tried the following commands but they don't seem to be working:

composer require maatwebsite/excel ~2.1.0
composer require vendor/maatwebsite/excel ~2.1.0
composer update maatwebsite/excel ~2.1.0
composer update vendor/maatwebsite/excel ~2.1.0

I've also tried using the --lock attribute but that's also not working.

Can anybody tell me what I am doing wrong?

Answer 1

To install a composer package with a specific version the docs suggest the use of a colon.

composer require maatwebsite/excel:~2.1.0 --no-update

Also, the composer cli tool composer help require help reads:

Required package name optionally including a version constraint, e.g. foo/bar or foo/bar:1.0.0 or foo/bar=1.0.0 or "foo/bar 1.0.0"

So to use a space separated version number, you needed the quotation marks surrounding the package/version combination. That is:

composer require "maatwebsite/excel ~2.1.0" --no-update

should work for you too.

Answer 2

To skip updates on any other package, simply add --no-update to your call. This instructs Composer to only require that new package and not update anything else.

The resulting call could then look like the following:

composer require maatwebsite/excel ~2.1.0 --no-update