Do not update a specific package - composer-php

Question

Is there a way to tell composer that each time I do a composer update I want him to ignore a specific package?

Answer 1

Have you considered specifying the required version for the package you are trying to ignore? For instance:
"require": {
"some/package": "~1.2"
}
This may get updated, because you are saying any version >=1.2,<2.0, But if you strictly say you want only version 1.0, you should not see any updates to that package:
"require": {
"some/package": "1.2"
}

Answer 2

Actually I don't know if there is any way to tell composer to exclude one specific package from updating but you can tell which packages to update as
composer update <package> <package2>; // or
php composer.phar update <package> <package2>;
For example,
composer update foo/package1 bar/package2; // or
php composer.phar update foo/package1 bar/package2;
Also, I think, if you don't list them in composer.json (remove after installation) by yourself, then they will not be updated unless also specified in the list.
From Composer:
If you only want to install or update one dependency, you can whitelist them:
$ php composer.phar update monolog/monolog [...]
Check this link and also check Composer.
Update : (found on internet but not tested)
To do that, just remove the package from composer.lock

Answer 3

Update: Only availble for composer versions 1.0.0-alpha6 and lower. Using it in version 1.0.0-alpha7 and higher will remove all packages in "require-dev".
I believe currently you can trick composer with some mess if you can afford it in your project. Something like: Put all packages you don't want to update in "require-dev" and run updates with composer update --no-dev
Just be careful of that if you run composer install as i recall they will be removed from your project.
All this trickery is really nasty, so we should wait for official way of doing things like that, personally i update packages explicitly specifying them

Answer 4

To ignore a specific package, you can use provide (if it's part of your own package) or replace. This tells Composer that you wish to provide/replace a specific package, so it won't download it.
Here is the composer.json file example which should work:
{
"require": {
"radic/tmp-underscore-php": "~1.2.0"
},
"replace": {
"patchwork/utf8": "*"
}
}
In this example, the patchwork/utf8 package would be ignored on composer install or update.
To exclude specific version, see: Composer exclude specific versions.