**Course Title:** Mastering CodeIgniter Framework: Fast, Lightweight Web Development **Section Title:** Introduction to CodeIgniter and Development Setup **Topic:** Setting up the development environment (PHP, CodeIgniter, Composer) **Overview** In this topic, we will guide you through setting up a development environment for CodeIgniter, including PHP, Composer, and the CodeIgniter framework itself. By the end of this topic, you will have a fully functional development environment ready for building web applications with CodeIgniter. **System Requirements** Before we begin, ensure your system meets the following requirements: * PHP 7.3 or later (preferably the latest version) * Composer (the dependency manager for PHP) * CodeIgniter 4.x (the latest version) * A code editor or IDE of your choice * A web server (e.g., Apache, Nginx) **Step 1: Installing PHP** To install PHP, follow these steps: * For Windows users: * Download the PHP installer from the official PHP website: <https://www.php.net/downloads> * Follow the installation wizard to install PHP * For macOS users (using Homebrew): * Install PHP using Homebrew by running the following command in your terminal: `brew install php` * For Linux users: * Install PHP using your distribution's package manager (e.g., `sudo apt-get install php` for Ubuntu-based systems) Once installed, verify that PHP is working by running the following command in your terminal: `php -v` **Step 2: Installing Composer** To install Composer, follow these steps: * For Windows users: * Download the Composer installer from the official Composer website: <https://getcomposer.org/download/> * Follow the installation wizard to install Composer * For macOS and Linux users: * Install Composer using the following command in your terminal: `curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php` Once installed, verify that Composer is working by running the following command in your terminal: `composer --version` **Step 3: Installing CodeIgniter** To install CodeIgniter using Composer, follow these steps: * Open your terminal and navigate to the directory where you want to install CodeIgniter * Run the following command to install CodeIgniter: `composer create-project codeigniter4/appstarter project-name` * Replace `project-name` with the desired name for your project This command will create a new directory with the project name and install the CodeIgniter framework and its dependencies. **Configuring the Web Server** To configure your web server, follow these steps: * For Apache users: * Create a new virtual host configuration file in the Apache configuration directory (e.g., `/etc/apache2/sites-available/`) * Add the following configuration to the file: ```bash <VirtualHost *:80> DocumentRoot /path/to/project-name/public ServerName project-name.localhost <Directory /path/to/project-name/public> Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews AllowOverride All Require all granted </Directory> </VirtualHost> ``` Replace `/path/to/project-name/public` with the path to the `public` directory in your project. * For Nginx users: * Create a new server block configuration file in the Nginx configuration directory (e.g., `/etc/nginx/sites-available/`) * Add the following configuration to the file: ```bash server { listen 80; server_name project-name.localhost; root /path/to/project-name/public; index index.php index.html index.htm; location / { try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?_url=$uri&$args; } location ~ \.php$ { try_files $uri =404; fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.3-fpm.sock; fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name; include fastcgi_params; } } ``` Replace `/path/to/project-name/public` with the path to the `public` directory in your project. **Testing the Development Environment** To test the development environment, follow these steps: * Open a web browser and navigate to `http://project-name.localhost` (replace `project-name` with your project name) * You should see the CodeIgniter welcome page If you encounter any issues during the setup process, please leave a comment below, and we will be happy to assist you. In the next topic, we will explore the MVC architecture in CodeIgniter and learn how to build robust web applications using this architecture.