I'm trying to install the Coinbase PHP API but it requires Composer:
https://github.com/coinbase/coinbase-php
I'm looking for a universal PHP solution (perhaps a function) to let me install composer packages directly onto my server, without having to use Composer.
I think the developers of Composer believe they are helping people, but actually there are thousands of beginner developers that are being locked out of learning web development by the 'Composer barrier'.
It would really help if there was a flexible solution or some approach where we could install without Composer? How can I do this?
Please don't respond with some sarcastic comment. There are people that don't want to use Composer and I don't see why we should be herded into a specific third-party software in order to do web development.
You can try https://php-download.com/ which can help you download all dependency most of the time along with vendor folder. It promises composer not required.
Tried it myself. It finds and creates all required folders and zips it for download. Works perfectly !!
The composer.json file lists the dependencies. In your example:
"require": {
"php": ">=5.5.0",
"guzzlehttp/guzzle": "^6.0",
"psr/http-message": "^1.0",
"psr/log": "^1.0"
},
You must then find the corresponding packages in the packagist site. Repeat the same process for each dependency: find additional dependencies in their corresponding composer.json files and search again.
When you finally have a complete list of the required packages, you only need to install them all one by one. For the most part, it's just a matter of dropping the files somewhere in your project directory. But you must also ensure that PHP can find the needed classes. Since you aren't using Composer's auto-loader, you need to add them to your own custom autoloader. You can figure out the information from the respective composer.json files, e.g.:
"autoload": {
"psr-4": { "Coinbase\\Wallet\\": "src/" }
},
If you don't use a class auto-loader you'll need to figure out the individual require_once statements. You'll probably need a lot of trial and error because most library authors won't care documenting that.
Also, and just in case there's confusion about this:
Composer has an official GUI installer for Windows and a copy and paste command-line installation procedure for all platforms.
Composer can be run locally and its output just uploaded elsewhere. You don't need SSH in your shared hosting.
The command needed to install a library can be copied and pasted from the package web site—even if the package maintainer didn't care to document it, packagist.org generates it by default.
Composer is not perfect and it doesn't suit all use cases but, when it comes to installing a library that relies on it, it's undoubtedly the best alternative and it's a fairly decent one.
I've checked other answers that came after mine. They mostly fall in two categories:
Install a library and write a custom download script with it
Use an online web based interface for Composer
Unless I'm missing something, none of them address the complaints expressed by the OP:
Learning curve
Use of third-party software
Possibility to develop right on the server (using SSH, I presume)
Potentially deep dependency tree
I'm using shared hosting for a website and can't execute commands there. Aside from running composer via php script request that I request via browser, I usually use this workflow:
Make sure you have php installed locally.
Make directory on desktop.
download composer.phar from https://getcomposer.org/download/ (under header *Manual Download) and place it in the directory.
make a file composer.json paste in it the following contents
{
"require": {
"coinbase/coinbase": "~2.0"
}
}
Browse to the directory with the shell of your choice(bash, git-bash, cmd, windows bash)
type php composer.phar update
Upload the vendor directory to your webserver via ftp or whatever mechanic you use.
include in your php project where you load your libraries(modify path to where you uploaded the vendor dir so it will include that autoload file)
require_once('vendor/autoload.php');
This way you get the benefit of dependency management and you don't have to include manually all the gazillion of files and download all the dependencies manually, and updating them is just as easy as typing php composer.phar update and then replacing the vendor dir on your server with the new one.
An alternative solution that worked for me (since php-download was down) can be done by making your own little local composer downloader.
Download and install XAMPP locally: https://www.apachefriends.org/index.html
Download and install composer locally: https://getcomposer.org/download/
Open commandprompt, navigate to say c:\temp and and simply type the composer dependancy, for example: composer require league/oauth2-client
Copy the files from your c:\temp folder to your web host using an FTP program
Add this to the top of your php: require("vendor/autoload.php");
This is not the ultimate solution but for me it was a big help for most of the cases:
https://github.com/Wilkins/composer-file-loader
Allow you to load composer.json file just as composer would do it.
This allow you to load composer.json file without composer (so
theorically PHP 5.2 is enough)
I know the question is old but I hope it will help someone.
I had to do this for an FTP server I didn't have SSH access to. The site listed in here worked, then I realized you can just do a composer install on your own server (using your target's PHP version), then copy all the files over.
Analizing the problem
The problem in installing the dependencies without Composer is the autoloading system.
Composer use a homemade autoloader based on an array map, this is a de-facto standard.
But this autoloading system, "fortunally" in this case, is not PSR-4 compliant.
PSR-4 is the de-iure standard for autoload a class in PHP, so you can't escape from autoloading. You must use one of them.
Solution Proposal
In this case, this brilliant PSR-4 autoloader is capable to be manually configured to autoload a VendorClass in a VendorNamespace anywhere in your code, as long as you require the custom autoload.php file early in your source code.
Real life example
Let's look at this example:
I have a legacy project who can't and won't use Composer never and never even if God allow this with a miracle. This project can be speed up in development with this fantastic package for command line scripts.
This is my project directory structure:
- src
- tests
- vendor (not the Composer's one)
This package has this directory structure:
- examples
- src
- Commando
- tests
The only thing I need is the src folder. Placing this folder in my vendor folder would be fine. So my custom autoloader would be like this:
// Constants
$base_path = "path\to\my\project";
$autoloader_class = '\vendor\MarcoConsiglio-Wichee\PSR-4-Autoloading\Psr4AutoloaderClass.php';
define("BASE_PATH", str_replace("\\", DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR, $base_path));
// Autoloader
require_once BASE_PATH.'\vendor\MarcoConsiglio-Wichee\PSR-4-Autoloading\Psr4AutoloaderClass.php';
// Init the autoloader.
$package = [
"nategood\commando" => [
"namespace" => "Commando",
"path" => str_replace("\\", DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR, '\vendor\nategood\commando\src\Commando')
],
"kevinlebrun\colors.php" => [
"namespace" => "Colors",
"path" => str_replace("\\", DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR, '\vendor\kevinlebrun\colors.php\src\Colors')
]
];
// Register namespaces.
$loader = new \PSR4\Psr4AutoloaderClass;
$loader->register();
// Namespace // Path to source
$loader->addNamespace($package["nategood\commando"]["namespace"], BASE_PATH.$package["nategood\commando"]["path"]);
$loader->addNamespace($package["nategood\commando"]["namespace"], BASE_PATH.$package["nategood\commando"]["path"]."\Util");
$loader->addNamespace($package["kevinlebrun\colors.php"]["namespace"], BASE_PATH.$package["kevinlebrun\colors.php"]["path"]);
Now I can use the command package anywhere in my project!
Pros & Cons
This solution allow you to:
Easely and manually build your own custom autoloader (you only need to specify the VendorNamespace and the folder(s) where search for VendorClasses in the VendorNamespace.
Freely organize your composer dependency anywhere in your project folder (and why not, outside it)
Import a composer package as is in your project (either downloading locally with Composer or cloning the package repository) or a relevant part of it (i.e removing composer.json file or files that require the composer autoloader).
Cons:
Manually build your custom autoloader means to work on every required dependency of your project (i hope not a lot).
Mistakes in package source paths can be tedious and frustrating.
Works only with PSR-4 compliant file names (i.e. can't use a A.class.php file name)
I am attempting to install the Microsoft Azure Storage PHP Client Libraries for the first time and am encountering difficulties. I am following the instructions found at https://github.com/Azure/azure-storage-php but I don't find them sufficiently clear. Step 1 under the Install via Composer header says,
Create a file named composer.json in the root of your project and add the following code to it:
{
"require": {
"microsoft/azure-storage-blob": "",
"microsoft/azure-storage-table": "",
"microsoft/azure-storage-queue": "",
"microsoft/azure-storage-file": ""
}
}
There is already a composer.json file in the azure-storage-php directory created by the
git clone https://github.com/Azure/azure-storage-php.git
command. Am I supposed to overwrite the existing composer.json file with the Step 1 instructions? Also, how does my PHP program reference the necessary libraries? I understand I will have use statements like the following code in my PHP program:
use MicrosoftAzure\Storage\Blob\BlobRestProxy;
use MicrosoftAzure\Storage\Common\Exceptions\ServiceException;
use MicrosoftAzure\Storage\Blob\Models\ListBlobsOptions;
use MicrosoftAzure\Storage\Blob\Models\CreateContainerOptions;
use MicrosoftAzure\Storage\Blob\Models\PublicAccessType;
You may rightly discern that I am new to composer installs. It seems to me that the instructions found in https://github.com/Azure/azure-storage-php are not sufficiently clear for a composer novice. Thanks for the help.
I have figured out my problem and it has to do with how I read the installation instructions in https://github.com/Azure/azure-storage-php. There are several bold subtitles and I read Install via Composer as a continuation of Download Source Code when in fact Install via Composer is independent of Download Source Code. Most technical people are familiar with the software installation paradigm of downloading the software and then installing and that is how I thought this was to work. However, the instructions contained in Install via Composer can be followed without performing any of the instructions found in Download Source Code. That is how I got this to work by beginning the installation at Install via Composer and ignoring the previous. I am sure an experience composer user would have known what to do, but for a composer novice I think these instruction could be better written.
I want to use Slim 3.x framework to create a REST API for my applications.
I am using a shared hosting, so I can't use composer to install dependencies, therefore I have to install it manually.
I followed this tutorial, but I can't figure out how to change these lines in my index.php file to make it work!
require 'Slim/Slim.php';
\Slim\Slim::registerAutoloader();
$app = new \Slim\Slim();
and also this one:
use \Slim\Slim;
Slim::registerAutoloader();
Thanks!
The easiest way to handle Composer dependencies is to run Composer locally and commit the vendor directory into your repository.
Write your website, using Composer, as usual and commit composer.json, composer.lock and all the files in vendor.
Note the following:
Ensure that your .gitignore file does not exclude vendor. This is very common when starting from a skeleton project.
2, Ensure that you only use packages that have a release number. That is never use dev-master in your composer.json as if you do, Composer will install it via git and you won't be able to add it to your own repository. There are good reasons for avoiding dev-master dependencies anyway.
Your git repository now has all the files needed to run the website directly within it and so you can now simply upload your website to your shared host as you usually do.
I wrote up full details here: https://akrabat.com/using-composer-with-shared-hosting/
Download the Slim Framework from here https://php-download.com/package/slim/slim then just add require_once('vendor/autoload.php');
I am currently trying to install Omnipay into my Codeigniter project. I am stuck on windows because I do not have ssh access to the box where this needs to run on. So far I have gotten a new directory in the project root that is named "vendor" and it contains a lot of empty directories referring to Symfony (for what reason is beyond me).
Then I get a runtime exception that I need to enable the openssl extension in my php to download the necessary files and this is where I am stuck at. I don't run WAMP on my computer and I just use the php.exe I downloaded to work with netbeans.
Isn't there an easier way to get omnipay to run? Like just download the files from somewhere and plug them into my project like normal? It seems to be an aweful lot of headache to get a simple library to run in my CI project.
Please forgive my ignorance towards composer but I currently see no benefit of using it for this particular project.
You can "just download" the files here: https://github.com/omnipay/common/archive/master.zip
The problem is, Omnipay depends on Guzzle (an HTTP library), and Guzzle depends on some Symfony components. So you will spend the rest of the day downloading dependencies and making sure you have all the necessary files. That is the problem Composer solves for you.
I don't have any experience running Composer on Windows, but I would start here:
http://getcomposer.org/doc/00-intro.md#installation-windows
Using the Installer
This is the easiest way to get Composer set up on your machine.
Download and run Composer-Setup.exe, it will install the latest
Composer version and set up your PATH so that you can just call
composer from any directory in your command line.
Once you have Composer installed, you should simply be able to make a file named composer.json in your project root, with the following contents:
{
"require": {
"omnipay/omnipay": "~2.0"
}
}
Then use the Command Prompt and cd to your project's directory, and run composer update to download the Omnipay files and all their dependencies.
Without using Composer, is it possible to download a repository in Github along with it's defined composer packages?
For example: FluxBB 2 requires Laravel 4.
I was hoping to download FluxBB and at the same time the packages of Laravel 4 without using Composer.
Usually projects that use composer will ignore 3rd party components. In .gitignore you will see /vendor. This is the place where Composer downloads its dependencies.
This will find the latest version of monolog/monolog that matches the supplied version constraint and download it into the vendor directory. It's a convention to put third party code into a directory named vendor. In case of monolog it will put it into vendor/monolog/monolog.
Tip: If you are using git for your project, you probably want to add vendor into your .gitignore. You really don't want to add all of that code to your repository.
http://getcomposer.org/doc/01-basic-usage.md#installing-dependencies
Doing it manually is a bit of a hassle. Composer uses packagist to get its files (if you look at a package it has a source added to it Laravel https://packagist.org/packages/laravel/framework).
Composer auto loads the needed files automatically so its a big time saver.
For libraries that specify autoload information, Composer generates a vendor/autoload.php file. You can simply include this file and you will get autoloading for free.
require 'vendor/autoload.php';
This makes it really easy to use third party code. For example: If
your project depends on monolog, you can just start using classes from
it, and they will be autoloaded.
http://getcomposer.org/doc/01-basic-usage.md#autoloading