What is the difference between php and php7.2 packages?

Shall I install both of them and both of its modules?

apt-cache depends php
php
Depends: php7.2


And there is two packages for php cli:

apt-cache policy php7.2-cli
php7.2-cli:
Installed: (none)
Candidate: 7.2.7-0ubuntu0.18.04.2
Version table:
7.2.7-0ubuntu0.18.04.2 500
500 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-security/main amd64 Packages
500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates/main amd64 Packages
7.2.3-1ubuntu1 500
500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic/main amd64 Packages


The next one:

apt-cache policy php-cli
php-cli:
Installed: (none)
Candidate: 1:7.2+60ubuntu1
Version table:
1:7.2+60ubuntu1 500
500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic/main amd64 Packages
500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic/main i386 Packages


2 Answers
2

php is a meta package. It does not contain any software, but just links to the "correct" package via its dependency/ies.

php

From apt show php:

apt show php

This package is a dependency package, which depends on Debian's default
PHP version (currently 7.0).

(7.0, because I'm using 16.04)

So it is up to you whether to install php or php7.2. But note: with the next release upgrade, php might get upgraded to the next version, while with php7.2, the version is fixed which might lead to some issues after upgrading.

php

php7.2

php

php7.2

For the normal user® it is recommended to install the meta-package.

There are also meta-packages depending on multiple other packages, so you can install a whole software bundle with just one meta-package, e.g. unity-desktop.

unity-desktop

From help.ubuntu.com:

One of the handy features of apt (the packaging system used by Ubuntu) is the use of metapackages. These packages do not contain actual software, they simply depend on other packages to be installed. This setup allows entire sets of software to be installed by selecting only the appropriate metapackage

Links:

The php-* packages are metapackages which depend on the corresponding php7.2-* packages, the latter providing the actual PHP software.

php-*

php7.2-*

The purpose of those metapackages is to make upgrades smoother: when you upgrade to a newer Ubuntu release which provides, say, PHP 7.3, the php-* packages will be upgraded to the newer versions, which of course will depend on the new php7.3-* packages. Thus the new php7.3-* packages will be automatically installed, and the old php7.2-* ones will be marked as no longer used (and to be removed with apt autoremove).

php-*

php7.3-*

php7.3-*

php7.2-*

apt autoremove

If you install only the php7.2-* packages, they will work fine for now, but later you would need to install the packages for newer PHP versions manually, so yes, it is recommended to install the php-* ones.

php7.2-*

php-*

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