What is the difference between require and require-dev sections in composer.json?

Question

I\'m beginning using composer, I know so little about it and have a little experience with web application development.

I just walk through Nettuts+ Tutorial, so I h

Answer 1

From the composer site (it's clear enough)

require#

Lists packages required by this package. The package will not be installed unless those requirements can be met.

require-dev (root-only)#

Lists packages required for developing this package, or running tests, etc. The dev requirements of the root package are installed by default. Both install or update support the --no-dev option that prevents dev dependencies from being installed.

Using require-dev in Composer you can declare the dependencies you need for development/testing the project but don't need in production. When you upload the project to your production server (using git) require-dev part would be ignored.

Also check this answer posted by the author and this post as well.