Add support for custom PHP install directories

[manticorp]

This library assumes a user is using some sort of

I personally use the excellent Powershell PHP manager:

https://github.com/mlocati/powershell-phpmanager

and have multiple PHP versions installed in multiple directories, e.g.:

C:/PHP7324
C:/PHP7333
C:/PHP7433
C:/PHP8410
C:/PHP8413

etc

However, there seems to be absolutely no way to manually specify PHP installations?

Can this be fixed? Maybe a user ```.php-versions.json`` file like so?

[
   {
        "path": "C:\\PHP8410",
        "version": "8.4.10",
        "threadsafe": 1,
        "architecture": "x64"
   },
   {
        "path": "C:\\PHP8410_x86",
        "version": "8.4.10",
        "threadsafe": 1,
        "architecture": "x86"
   },
   {
        "path": "C:\\PHP7324",
        "version": "7.3.24",
        "threadsafe": 1,
        "architecture": "x64"
   }
]

Or something?

[tucksaun]

Why not.

To be noted: only the path would be required as we can they rely on the discovery algorithms to detect versions and so forth.

Also, php-versions.json is probably not the right naming: the dot prefix suggests it would be hidden, probably because you expect it to be located in a project directory. But I believe it should instead be located next to the global php_versions.json. Which means that naming should also be safe explanatory to avoid any confusions.
What about user_defined.json or something similar that convene the user definition?

[manticorp]

Sounds great to me! Perhaps, to stay next to the original file, php_versions.user.json?

[tucksaun]

another idea: what do you think of environment variable?
similar to PATH. something like SYMFONY_PHP_LOOKUP_PATH.

[manticorp]

Sure, can't see why not - it could provide multiple folders as well, separated by ; like regular PATH.

I guess the only issue might be on servers where you can't set a persistent PATH variable? In which case a user json file would be fine.

In either case, if phpstore does not find any PHP installations, it could prompt the user and automatically create the environment variable and/or json file?