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

Note the require-dev (root-only) !

which means that the require-dev section is only valid when your package is the root of the entire project. I.e. if you run composer update from your package folder.

If you develop a plugin for some main project, that has it's own composer.json, then your require-dev section will be completely ignored! If you need your developement dependencies, you have to move your require-dev to composer.json in main project.