symfony2: how to integrate a php library which is not a bundle

Question

I am trying to integrate Agile CRM in my Symfony2 application.

There is a PHP library provided by Agile : https://github.com/agilecrm/php-api

However it's not a bundle.

How can I integrate it correctly in my application? Should I put a require once in my app.php or my kernel? Or is there a better way?

score 5 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 21 '15 at 08:40

Composer has a feature to auto load files

https://getcomposer.org/doc/04-schema.md#files

{
    "autoload": {
        "files": ["src/MyLibrary/functions.php"]
    }
}

Other ways ?

Expose the functionality as a Service using the code provided in the library.

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 21 '15 at 08:33

2

I think the best way to do this is to:

contribute to the project to add a composer.json
contribute to allow the configuration to be loaded from elsewhere instead of being hardcoded

Then you'll be abled to simply use composer to load that package. :)

answered Jul 21 '15 at 08:33

Yassine Guedidi

1,695
11
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that would be nice! I'm not an expert at composer, but I'll have a look – Sébastien Jul 21 '15 at 08:54
You should really learn how to write a good composer.json file :) – Yassine Guedidi Jul 21 '15 at 08:59
For sure you can do what @Vamsi Krishna B answers, it will work, but contributing to ease that for everyone is better IMO – Yassine Guedidi Jul 21 '15 at 09:01

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 21 '15 at 09:34

Composer (as mentioned in other answers) is only a dependency manager and therefore only part of the solution. If you are really interested in the cleanest way, it is quite simple: write the bundle yourself.

In fact, there are many examples of bundles that work as integration layers for 3rd party libraries. For example, look at https://github.com/nelmio/alice, a Symfony2 bundle meant to wrap Faker, an external data fixture lib.

A bundle may declare configuration options overridable by the app main config files. It may expose service definitions for the library objects so that you can avoid to create them manually and inject them when needed (whether or not the library is written with DI in mind). It may be also useful for twig extensions, event listeners and so on.

A good written bundle promotes reuse, testability and separation of concern. Don't be scared from writing your bundle from scratch, start here http://symfony.com/doc/current/cookbook/bundles/best_practices.html

The requested lib is "just" a function, no needs for a bundle in that case. The file that define the function just need to be autoloaded. — Yassine Guedidi, Jul 21 '15 at 12:10
He asked if a better way does indeed exist. Well... the answer is: it does. — Diego Ferri, Jul 21 '15 at 12:16

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 22 '15 at 10:00

As agilecrm/php-api is not available on Packagist the best approach would be to add the repository to your composer.json file and then install the package the same way you would with everything else.

{
    //...
    "repositories": [
        {
            "type": "package",
            "package": {
                "name": "agilecrm/php-api",
                "version": "2.1.0",
                "source": {
                    "url": "https://github.com/agilecrm/php-api",
                    "type": "git",
                    "reference": "2.1.0"
                }
            }
        }
    ],
    "require": {
        //...
        "agilecrm/php-api": "2.1.0"
    }
//...
}

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Jul 21 '15 at 09:50

0

You should add it to your composer.json

{
        "require": {
            "agilecrm/php-api": "dev-master"
        },
        "repositories": [
        {
            "type": "vcs",
            "url":  "git@github.com:agilecrm/php-api.git"
        }
    ]
}

or you can add it to composer autoloader https://getcomposer.org/doc/01-basic-usage.md#autoloading

answered Jul 21 '15 at 09:50

Robert

19,800
5
55
85

hmmm, it needs to have its own composer.json first – Sébastien Jul 21 '15 at 12:14
so add it to your composer.json in autoload(second part of my answer) – Robert Jul 21 '15 at 14:13

symfony2: how to integrate a php library which is not a bundle

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