composer install fails on phpcs dev-master some time after 3.11.2

[sirbrillig]

We use a dev-master install of phpcs during the automated QA tests and during other CI test runs as a way to make sure nothing unexpected is going to break this sniff.

At the latest release of phpcs, 3.11.2 (1368f4a58c3c52114b86b1abe8f4098869cb0079), this works fine. Now, however, (some time since then) composer install shows this error:

  Problem 1
    - Root composer.json requires squizlabs/php_codesniffer dev-master, found squizlabs/php_codesniffer[dev-feature/dont-ignore-internal-errors, dev-TEST/ghactions-revert-code-coverage-php-version, dev-feature/variable-sniffs-minor-performance-tweak, dev-feature/generators-dont-print-title-if-no-docs, dev-feature/add-security-file, dev-feature/3.x-metrics-for-switch-statements, dev-feature/773-safeguard-against-duplicate-test-markers, dev-feature/3769-improve-todo-fixme-sniffs, dev-feature/psr12-fileheader-more-modular-errorcode-spacing-after, dev-feature/pear-psr2-psr12-functioncallsignature-check-anon-classes, dev-4.x/feature/ci-prevent-issues-with-code-coverage, dev-phpcs-4.x/gitattributes-dont-ignore-test-framework-files, dev-phpcs-4.x/remove-external-tooling-sniffs, dev-phpcs-4.x/file-isreference-simplify, dev-phpcs-4.x/tokenizer-php-minor-tweak, dev-phpcs-4.x/3115-let-static-be-static, 1.4.2, ..., 1.5.x-dev, 2.0.0a1, ..., 2.9.x-dev, 3.0.0a1, ..., 3.11.2, 4.0.x-dev] but it does not match the constraint.
  Problem 2
    - phpcsstandards/phpcsdevcs[1.1.0, ..., 1.1.2] require squizlabs/php_codesniffer ^3.5.0 -> found squizlabs/php_codesniffer[3.5.0, ..., 3.11.2] but it conflicts with your root composer.json require (dev-master).
    - phpcsstandards/phpcsdevcs[1.1.3, ..., 1.1.6] require squizlabs/php_codesniffer ^3.6.2 -> found squizlabs/php_codesniffer[3.6.2, ..., 3.11.2] but it conflicts with your root composer.json require (dev-master).
    - Root composer.json requires phpcsstandards/phpcsdevcs ^1.1 -> satisfiable by phpcsstandards/phpcsdevcs[1.1.0, ..., 1.1.6].

I can't quite grok what that means but it has something to do with the phpcsdevcs dependency. We currently require version ^1.1, which should include the latest release of 1.1.6, so I'm not sure what's going on but I wanted to document it.

[jrfnl]

@sirbrillig That shouldn't be happening... Having said that, I can see the same on other repos with a similar CI setup (I've just done a test run on one of the other repos).

I wonder if the messaging from Composer isn't broken and not actually pointing out the real issue, which I suspect might be this:
composer/composer#12257

To test this theory, I've now reverted the commit in the PHPCSStandards/.github repo which led me to find the above issue and ran the tests in the other repo again and things seem to be working fine again.

As far as I'm concerned, this confirms the problem is Composer itself + the messaging from Composer not being clear at all.

If you re-run the tests in this repo now, things should be working again.

I'll wait with re-doing the commit to the PHPCSStandards/.github repo until my PR to Composer itself has been merged (and released) to prevent the problem re-occurring.

I think we need to alert Composer to the messaging problem as well though, as, independently of my fix, this messaging is unclear and causing more problems than it should.

[sirbrillig]

You're right! Tests are passing now! Thank you. I never would have figured that out.