Error: "The zip extension and unzip command are both missing, skipping."

Laravel is one of the most popular PHP frameworks for web application development. It is built to make web development easier and more efficient. However, when installing Laravel via Composer, you may encounter an error that says “zip and unzip extension commands are missing”. This error typically occurs when the necessary extensions for zip and unzip are not installed on your system. In this article, we will discuss how to fix this error on various systems.

Solution for Ubuntu:

If you are using Ubuntu, you can install the necessary extensions for zip and unzip using the following commands:

sudo apt-get install php-zipsudo apt-get install unzip

Once you have installed the necessary extensions, you can try running the Laravel installation command again using Composer.

Solution for macOS:

If you are using macOS, you can install the necessary extensions for zip and unzip using Homebrew by running the following commands:

brew install php-zipbrew install unzip

Once you have installed the necessary extensions, you can try running the Laravel installation command again using Composer.

Solution for Windows:

If you are using Windows, you can follow these steps to install the necessary extensions:

1. Open your php.ini file. You can find the location of this file by running the following command in your command prompt:

php --ini 

This will display the location of your php.ini file.

2. Search for the following two extensions in the php.ini file:

;extension=php_zip.dll ;extension=php_openssl.dll 

If these lines are commented out with a semicolon (;), remove the semicolon to uncomment them. If these lines do not exist in the php.ini file, you can add them at the end of the file.

3. Download the appropriate version of the php_zip.dll file for your PHP version from the following URL: https://windows.php.net/downloads/pecl/releases/zip/

4. Copy the downloaded php_zip.dll file to your PHP extensions directory. You can find the location of this directory by searching for the following line in your php.ini file:

extension_dir = "ext"

5. Restart your web server or PHP process.

Once you have completed these steps, try running the Laravel installation command again using Composer. The error should no longer appear.

Conclusion:

The “zip and unzip extension commands are missing” error can be frustrating when trying to install Laravel via Composer. However, with the solutions provided in this article, you should be able to resolve the error on various systems. If you encounter any other issues during the Laravel installation process, be sure to consult the official Laravel documentation or seek help from the Laravel community.