PHP Composer Autoload

Summary: in this tutorial, you’ll learn how to use Composer to autoload PHP classes from files
using PSR-4 standard.

Loading classes using the require_once construct

First, create the following directory structure with files:

.
├── app
│ ├── bootstrap.php
│ └── models
│ └── User.php
└── index.php

The User.php file in the models folder holds the User class (https://www.phptutorial.net/php-
oop/php-objects/) :
 <?php

class User
{
private $username;

private $password;

public function __construct($username, $password)

{
$this->username = $username;
$this->password = password_hash($password);
}

public function getUsername(): string

{
return $this->username;
}
}

The User is a simple class. It has two properties $username and $password . The constructor
(https://www.phptutorial.net/php-oop/php-constructors/) initializes the properties from its arguments. Also,
it uses the password_hash() function to hash the $password .
The bootstrap.php file uses the require_once (https://www.phptutorial.net/php-tutorial/php-

require/) construct to load the User class from the User.php file in the models folder:

<?php

require_once 'models/User.php';

When you have more classes in the models folder, you can add more require_once statement
to the bootstrap.php file to load those classes.

The index.php file loads the bootstrap.php file and uses the User class:

<?php

require './app/bootstrap.php';

$user = new User('admin', '$ecurePa$$w0rd1');

This application structure works well if you have a small number of classes. However, when the
application has a large number of classes, the require_once doesn’t scale well. In this case, you
can use the spl_autoload_register() (https://www.phptutorial.net/php-oop/php-autoloading-class-

files/) function to automatically loads the classes from their files (https://www.phptutorial.net/php-
oop/php-autoloading-class-files/) .
The problem with the spl_autoload_register() function is that you have to implement the
autoloader functions by yourself. And your autoloaders may not like autoloaders developed by
other developers.

Therefore, when you work with a different codebase, you need to study the autoloaders in that
particular codebase to understand how they work.

This is why Composer comes into play.

Introduction to the Composer

Composer (https://getcomposer.org/) is a dependency manager for PHP. Composer allows you to

manage dependencies in your PHP project. In this tutorial, we’ll focus on how to use the Composer
for autoloading classes.

Before using Composer, you need to download and install it. The official documentation provides
you with the detailed steps of how to download and install Composer on your computer
(https://getcomposer.org/download/) .

To check whether the Composer installed successfully, you run the following command from the
Command Prompt on Windows or Terminal on macOS and Linux:

composer -v

It’ll return the current version and a lot of options that you can use with the composer command.
Autoloading classes with Composer

Back the the previous example, to use the Composer, you first create a new file called
composer.json under the project’s root folder. The project directory will look like this:

.
├── app
│ ├── bootstrap.php
│ └── models
│ └── User.php
├── composer.json
└── index.php

In the composer.json , you add the following code:

{
"autoload": {
"classmap": ["app/models"]
}
}

This code means that Composer will autoload all class files defined the app/models folder.
If you have classes from other folders that you want to load, you can specify them in classmap
array:

{
"autoload": {
"classmap": ["app/models", "app/services"]
}
}

In this example, Composer will load classes from both models and services folders under the
app folder.

Next, launch the Command Prompt on Windows or Terminal on macOS and Linux, and navigate to
the project directory.

Then, type the following command from the project directory:

composer dump-autoload

Composer will generate a directory called vendor that contains a number of files like this:

.
├── app
│ ├── bootstrap.php
 │ └── models
│ └── User.php
├── composer.json
├── index.php
└── vendor
├── autoload.php
└── composer
├── autoload_classmap.php
├── autoload_namespaces.php
├── autoload_psr4.php
├── autoload_real.php
├── autoload_static.php
├── ClassLoader.php
└── LICENSE

The most important file to you for now is autoload.php file.

After that, load the autoload.php file in the bootstrap.php file using the require_once
construct:

<?php

require_once __DIR__ . '/../vendor/autoload.php';

Finally, you can use the User class in the index.php :

<?php

require './app/bootstrap.php';

$user = new User('admin', '$ecurePa$$w0rd1');

From now, whenever you have a new class in the models directory, you need to run the
command composer dump-autoload again to regenerate the autoload.php file.

For example, the following defines a new class called Comment in the Comment.php file under
the models folder:

<?php

class Comment
{
private $comment;

public function __construct(string $comment)

{
$this->comment = $comment;
 }

public function getComment(): string

{
return strip_tags($this->comment);
}
}

If you don’t run the composer dump-autoload command and use the Comment class in the
index.php file, you’ll get an error:

<?php

require './app/bootstrap.php';

$user = new User('admin', '$ecurePa$$w0rd1');

$comment = new Comment('<h1>Hello</h1>');

echo $comment->getComment();

Error:

Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Class 'Comment' not found in...

However, if you run the composer dump-autoload command again, the index.php file will
work properly.

Composer autoload with PSR-4

PSR stands for PHP Standard Recommendation. PSR is a PHP specification published by the PHP
Framework Interop Group or PHP-FIG.

The goals of PSR are to enable interoperability of PHP components and to provide a common
technical basis for the implementation of best practices in PHP programming.

PHP-FIG has published a lot of PSR starting from PSR-0. For a complete list of PSR, check it out
the PSR page (https://www.php-fig.org/psr/) .

PSR-4 is auto-loading standard (https://www.php-fig.org/psr/psr-4/) that describes the specification for

autoloading classes from file paths. https://www.php-fig.org/psr/psr-4/

According to the PSR-4, a fully qualified class name has the following structure:

\<NamespaceName>(\<SubNamespaceNames>)*\<ClassName>

The structure starts with a namespace, followed by one or more sub namespaces, and the class
name.

To comply with PSR-4, you need to structure the previous application like this:
 .
├── app
│ ├── Acme
│ │ ├── Auth
│ │ │ └── User.php
│ │ └── Blog
│ │ └── Comment.php
│ └── bootstrap.php
├── composer.json
└── index.php

The new structure has the following changes:

First, the models directory is deleted.

Second, the User.php is under the Acme/Auth folder. And the User class is namespaced with
Acme/Auth . Notice how namespaces map to the directory structure. This also helps you find a
class file more quickly by looking at its namespace.

<?php

namespace Acme\Auth;
 class User
{
// implementation
// ...
}

Third, the Comment.php is under the Acme/Blog folder. The Comment class has the
namespace Acme\Blog :

<?php

namespace Acme\Blog;

class Comment
{
// implementation
// ...
}

Fourth, the composer.json file looks like the following:

{
"autoload": {
 "psr-4": {
"Acme\\":"app/Acme"
}
}
}

Instead using the classmap , the composer.json file now uses psr-4 . The psr-4 maps the
namespace "Acme\\" to the "app/Acme" folder.

Note that the second backslash ( \ ) in the Acme\ namespace is used to escape the first
backslash ( \ ).

Fifth, to use the User and Comment classes in the index.php file, you need to run the
composer dump-autoload command to generate the autoload.php file:

composer dump-autoload

Since the User and Comment classes have namespaces, you need to have the use statements
in index.php as follows:

<?php

require './app/bootstrap.php';
 use Acme\Auth\User as User;
use Acme\Blog\Comment as Comment;

$user = new User('admin', '$ecurePa$$w0rd1');

$comment = new Comment('<h1>Hello</h1>');

echo $comment->getComment();

Summary

Composer is a dependency management tool in PHP.

Use PSR-4 for organizing directory and class files.

Use the composer dump-autoload command to generate the autoload.php file.