Why Laravel Herd doesn't include gettext extension out of the box?§

[toghrul-nasirli]

I had to uninstall Herd because I couldn't find a way to install the gettext extension. Herd's official documentation says install extensions via pecl, but the problem is that pecl does not have the gettext extension in its library. So I had to install it manually and eventually gave up. But seriously, gettext is a widely needed extension and I don't know why Herd doesn't include it out of the box.

And how do we install other extensions if they are not available in pecl?

[tandasima]

Hi @toghrul-nasirli to install the gettext extension in Laravel Herd you'll need to do the following.

1. Install php via home-brew: brew install php
2. Download the gettext image from https://packages.macports.org/php83-gettext/. Ofcourse, match the same version like one you have installed via Laravel Herd. The link I provided in for php 8.3.x. Also, if you are using Mac M1/2... chip you should download the latest arm64 one. Eg. php83-gettext-8.3.8_0.darwin_21.arm64.tbz2 as of this writing.
3. Put the download anywhere it makes sense, eg. in ~/Herd/. Also, if you are using a Mac you will want to open the gettext at least once so you can allow it to be opened by the system, unless herd will fail to load it.
4. Following instructions from Herd, Adding additional extensions to php.ini, add the gettext.so path to the relevant file.
5. Quit herd and run herd start. Herd should start successfully. Sometimes it'd complain libintl.8.dylib file was not found. If this happens, you can create a symbolic link from homebrew's to the location where it is trying to find it.
   • Find it by running find /opt/homebrew -name "libintl.8.dylib".
   • If it is expecting it to be at /usr/local/lib/ and the above command finds the home-brew one at /opt/homebrew/opt/gettext/lib/libintl.8.dylib you can create the symbolic link by running sudo ln -s /opt/homebrew/opt/gettext/lib/libintl.8.dylib /usr/local/lib/libintl.8.dylib

I hope this helps.