How to fix errors when installing varbase with Composer?

Question

I'm using Drupal 8 and I'm trying to install the varbase distribution from the command line, on Windows with Acquia Dev Desktop.

The steps I did are:

• Disable opcache
• Check composer -V >>> result
• Run composer create-project Vardot/varbase-build:^8.4.06 %1 --no-dev --ignore-platform-reqs

This is causing the following error:

• Installing vardot/varbase (8.4.06): Downloading (100%)
  Writing lock file
  Generating autoload files
  PHP Parse error: syntax error, unexpected 'class' (T_CLASS), expecting identifier (T_STRING) or variable (T_VARIABLE) or '{' or '$' in C:\www\tmp_var\vendor\drupal-composer\drupal-scaffold\src\PrestissimoFileFetcher.php on line 34
  Parse error: syntax error, unexpected 'class' (T_CLASS), expecting identifier (T_STRING) or variable (T_VARIABLE) or '{' or '$' in C:\www\tmp_var\vendor\drupal-composer\drupal-scaffold\src\PrestissimoFileFetcher.php on line 34

I installed composor on windows Url: https://getcomposer.org/download/

(This is besided the compososer which is included in Acuia Desktop Version 2)

C:\www>composer self-update
You are already using composer version 1.5.1 (stable channel).

Then I exectuted commando:

composer create-project Vardot/varbase-project:^8.4.07 varbaseyellowbird --no-dev >> installlog.txt

After running it my project drupal folder was not looking good so I runned it again.

Answer 1

Drupal 8 requires PHP 5.5.9 or greater. The error is informing you that you have a lower version than that installed; specifically that the functionality for obtaining class name using ::class, which was added in 5.5, is missing.

The solution is to upgrade PHP to a version that Drupal supports.

Answer 2

PHP must be 5.6

Warning: About composer

https://getcomposer.org/download/

As we dedicated that composer had 3 changes updates under 10 days

1.5.1 (2017-08-09) 1.5.0 (2017-08-08) 1.4.3 (2017-08-06) 1.4.2 (2017-05-17) 1.4.1 (2017-03-10)

Which composer version are you using?!

After updating the composer:

   $ sudo composer self-update 1.5.1

You could use:

$ composer create-project Vardot/varbase-project:^8.4.06 PROJECT_DIR_NAME --no-dev --no-interaction

or

$ composer create-project Vardot/varbase-project:^8.4.07 PROJECT_DIR_NAME --no-dev --no-interaction

As we started to use Vardot/varbase-project from varbase 8.4.06

To read more https://www.drupal.org/node/2903606