Is it possible to ignore child dependencies in Composer config?

Question

When I run composer install, it will install all my "require" and the "require" of the other package.

My composer.json

{     "name": "my_app",     "require": {         "some/package": "0.0.0"     } } 

The "child" dependency

{     "name": "some/package",     "require": {         "zendframework/zend-mail": "2.4.*@dev",         "soundasleep/html2text": "~0.2",         "mpdf/mpdf": "6.0.0",         "endroid/qrcode": "1.*@dev"     } } 

I know that it's possible ignore the php extensions, but what about these second require package?

Answer 1

You can ignore packages to be downloaded with the replace property of your composer.json: https://getcomposer.org/doc/04-schema.md#replace

That way you tell composer, that you take or took care of that package's content on your own.

This can help you to ignore a package your are sure you do not need, but it is kind of hacky. So be aware some things (like tests) might break. A better approach would be to request a patch from the maintainer of the original package to make the requirements optional (via the suggest property).

edit:
Example for "disabling" the requirement to zendframework/zend-mail:

{     "name": "my_app",     "require": {         "some/package": "0.0.0"     },     "replace": {         "zendframework/zend-mail": "*"     } } 

Answer 2

I know that it's possible ignore the php extensions, but what about these second require package?

Yes, you can use --ignore-platform-reqs to ignore php, hhvm, lib-* and ext-* platform requirements and force the installation, even if the local machine does not fulfill these.

But, i'm not sure were you are heading with your question. What's the use-case for requiring a package without its dependencies in your application? Isn't this the main reason to use Composer?

No, its not possible, unless you are looking for require --no-update, which disables the automatic update of the dependencies. Please take a look at the CLI options for require and install.