Composer require branch name - google-cloud-platform

Question

For example I want to require:
{
"repositories": [
{
"type": "git",
"url": "https://github.com/google/google-api-php-client.git"
}
],
"require": {
"google/apiclient": "v1-master"
}
}
In this example I try require google/apiclient on branch v1-master. I get error:
[UnexpectedValueException]
Could not parse version constraint v1-master: Invalid version string "v1-master"

Answer 1

You need to prefix all dev branches (= non tagged) by dev-.
To install the branch you need, use:
composer require google/apiclient:dev-v1-master
See composer docs.

Answer 2

this will work :
{
"repositories": [
{
"type": "git",
"url": "https://github.com/google/google-api-php-client.git"
}
],
"require": {
"google/apiclient": "dev-BRANCH_NAME"
}
}
so pattern is "dev-*", if you branch name is "bug-fix" then "dev-bug-fix"
with command line :
composer require google/apiclient:dev-BRANCH_NAME

Answer 3

I was trying to the same for a different Google repository which contains several packages and it took me some time to figure it out. Therefore I am sharing my solution below.
My goal is to pull latest google/cloud-compute from https://github.com/googleapis/google-cloud-php.git within master branch.
Following steps worked for me:
Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/googleapis/google-cloud-php.git google-cloud-php
Set composer.json to use the right package from local folder:
{
"repositories": [
{
"type": "path",
"url": "/Users/USERNAME/projects/google-cloud-php/Compute"
}
],
"require": {
"google/cloud-compute": "dev-master"
}
}
Please note that in step 2 the url is pointing to the Compute subfolder where the actual google/cloud-compute package exists.
My solution could be easily tweaked for any branch, you would just need to git checkout the appropriate branch in step 1 and then change 'dev-master' to 'dev-YOUR_BRANCH' in step 2.