How to Create & Publish a PHP Package with Composer?

Creating and publishing a PHP package with Composer is a straightforward process that enables you to share your code with the PHP community. Composer, the popular dependency manager for PHP, makes it easy to manage your package and its dependencies.

Prerequisites

Ensure you have the following installed on your machine:

• PHP (version 7.4 or later)
• Composer (latest version)
• Git (latest version)
• A GitHub account

Steps to create and publish a PHP package with Composer

Step 1: Create a New Directory for Your Package

First, create a new directory for your PHP package and navigate into it:

mkdir my-php-package
cd my-php-package

Step 2: Initialize a New Composer Package

Initialize a new Composer package by running:

composer init

This command will prompt you to fill in several details about your package. Here are the typical prompts and example answers:

• Package name: your-username/my-php-package
• Description: A sample PHP package
• Author: Your Name <[email protected]>
• Minimum Stability: stable (or leave blank)
• Package Type: library
• License: MIT

For the dependencies, you can specify any required packages. For now, we'll keep it simple and just require PHP 7.4 or later:

{
    "require": {
        "php": ">=7.4"
    }
}

Confirm and generate the composer.json file.

Step 3: Create the composer.json File

The composer init command creates a composer.json file, which should look something like this:

{
    "name": "your-username/my-php-package",
    "description": "A sample PHP package",
    "type": "library",
    "require": {
        "php": ">=7.4"
    },
    "autoload": {
        "psr-4": {
            "MyPackage\\": "src/"
        }
    },
    "authors": [
        {
            "name": "Your Name",
            "email": "[email protected]"
        }
    ],
    "license": "MIT"
}

Step 4: Create the Source Directory and Add Code

Create a src directory and add your PHP code inside it. This example will create a simple class:

mkdir src

Inside the src directory, create a HelloWorld.php file with the following content:

<?php

namespace MyPackage;

class HelloWorld
{
    public function sayHello(): string
    {
        return "Hello, World!";
    }
}

Step 5: Write Tests (Optional but Recommended)

Testing your package is crucial. You can use PHPUnit, a popular testing framework for PHP.

First, install PHPUnit as a development dependency:

composer require --dev phpunit/phpunit

Create a tests directory and a HelloWorldTest.php file:

mkdir tests

In tests/HelloWorldTest.php, write a simple test for your class:

<?php

use PHPUnit\Framework\TestCase;
use MyPackage\HelloWorld;

class HelloWorldTest extends TestCase
{
    public function testSayHello()
    {
        $helloWorld = new HelloWorld();
        $this->assertEquals('Hello, World!', $helloWorld->sayHello());
    }
}

Run your tests using:

vendor/bin/phpunit tests

Step 6: Initialize a Git Repository

Initialize a Git repository in your project directory:

git init

Create a .gitignore file to exclude certain files from your repository:

echo "vendor/" > .gitignore
echo ".DS_Store" >> .gitignore
echo "composer.lock" >> .gitignore

Commit your changes:

git add .
git commit -m "Initial commit"

Step 7: Push to GitHub

Create a new repository on GitHub. Do not initialize it with a README or any other files, as this will cause conflicts.

Link your local repository to the GitHub repository and push your code:

git remote add origin https://github.com/your-username/my-php-package.git
git branch -M main
git push -u origin main

Step 8: Register Your Package with Packagist

To make your package available to others via Composer, you need to register it on Packagist.

Go to Packagist and log in using your GitHub account.

• Click on the "Submit" button.
• Enter the URL of your GitHub repository and click "Check".
• If everything looks good, click "Submit".

Packagist will now automatically fetch updates from your GitHub repository whenever you push changes.

Step 9: Install and Use Your Package

Your package is now available on Packagist and can be installed in any PHP project using Composer.

Create a new PHP project and install your package:

composer require your-username/my-php-package

To use the package in your project, include the Composer autoloader and use your package's classes:

<?php

require 'vendor/autoload.php';

use MyPackage\HelloWorld;

$helloWorld = new HelloWorld();
echo $helloWorld->sayHello();

Conclusion

By following these steps, you have created a PHP package, published it using Composer, and made it available on Packagist for others to use. This process allows you to share your code with the PHP community and easily manage it across different projects.

Further Considerations

• Versioning: Use semantic versioning (semver) for your package versions.
• Documentation: Maintain a README.md file with usage instructions and examples.
• Continuous Integration: Set up CI/CD pipelines using services like GitHub Actions to automate testing and deployment.

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Article Tags :

• Web Technologies
• PHP
• PHP Programs