Composer & Cygwin

Just tripped over the same problem and found a solution. Posting it here, just in case I’ll ever have to look it up again.

1. Set up a bin directory right under /home/my-username:

   cd ~
   mkdir bin
   

2. Move the composer.phar (or any other of those nifty new PHP imps that are on the rise)
   into the ~/bindirectory and make sure to set it’s execution bit:

   # Notice how I got rid of the superfluous `.phar` extension
   mv /path/to/composer.phar ~/bin/composer
   chmod +x ~/bin/composer
   

3. Tell cygwin to include your ~/bin directory in the search path:

   Open up the file ~/.bash_profile and uncomment the following paragraph …

   # Set PATH so it includes user's private bin if it exists
   if [ -d "${HOME}/bin" ] ; then
     PATH="${HOME}/bin:${PATH}"
   fi
   

4. Now, for the most important part:

   A wrapper script that helps Win’s native PHP resolve Unix style paths (which is causing
   the problem after all as Windows doesn’t know how to handle /cygdrive/... paths).

   cd ~/bin
   touch php
   chmod +x php
   

   After editing the wrapper script ~/bin/php should read:

   #!/bin/bash
   
   # e.g. php="/cygdrive/c/Program Files (x86)/php/php.exe"
   php="/path/to/php.exe"
   
   for ((n=1; n <= $#; n++)); do
       if [ -e "${!n}" ]; then
           # Converts Unix style paths to Windows equivalents
           path="$(cygpath --mixed ${!n} | xargs)"
   
           case 1 in
               $(( n == 1 )) )
                   set -- "$path" "${@:$(($n+1))}";;
               $(( n < $# )) )
                   set -- "${@:1:$((n-1))}" "$path" ${@:$((n+1)):$#};;
               *)
                   set -- "${@:1:$(($#-1))}" "$path";;
           esac
       fi
   done
   
   "$php" "$@"
   

5. Now restart your shell and it should correctly invoke the PHP interpreter whenever it
   stumbles upon a #!/usr/bin/env php shebang. Simply issue a:

   composer --help