Composer Preload Files Plugin

Autoload Your Files Before Vendor Files

This Composer plugin enables you to autoload files that you specify before any vendor files.

This package is based on the original funkjedi/composer-include-files by @funkjedi and its fork hopeseekr-contribs/composer-include-files by @hopeseekr. Because maintenance of these packages appears to be stalled, I decided to attempt and remake the package from scratch and fix any reported bugs in the process.

✅ Requirements

• PHP >= 7.0
• Composer ^2.3

📦 Install

Install this package with Composer:

composer require codezero/composer-preload-files

📘 Usage

Add the preload-files to your project's composer.json under the extra section:

"extra": {
    "preload-files": [
        "app/helpers.php"
    ]
},

The preload-files in the extra section will be loaded before the files in a standard autoload or autoload-dev section. This is true for your project, but also for any vendor package. Your project's preload files will always be loaded first.

🔌 Example Use Case

The best example use case is when you need to override a global helper function in a Laravel project. Those helper functions are declared in helper files that are loaded in the files array in the autoload section of composer.json:

"autoload": {
    "files": [
        "src/Illuminate/Collections/helpers.php",
        "src/Illuminate/Events/functions.php",
        "src/Illuminate/Foundation/helpers.php",
        "src/Illuminate/Support/helpers.php"
    ]
},

These functions are declared like this:

// helpers.php
if ( ! function_exists('route')) {
    function route($name, $parameters = [], $absolute = true)
    {
        return app('url')->route($name, $parameters, $absolute);
    }
}

If you add your own helper file to your project's autoload section to override such function, you will notice that Laravel's function is already loaded, and you can not redeclare it.

One way to solve this, is to manually require the helper file before Composer's autoload.php file. For Laravel, this means you need to require the file in your project's public/index.php file:

require __DIR__.'/../app/helpers.php';
require __DIR__.'/../vendor/autoload.php';

This works, but it is difficult, if not impossible to test (I did not find a way yet). If you are developing a package, it's also an extra step that users need take to install it.

Another solution is a package like this.

☕ Credits

• @ivanvermeyen
• @hopeseekr - original fork: hopeseekr-contribs/composer-include-files
• @funkjedi - original: funkjedi/composer-include-files
• All contributors

🔒 Security

If you discover any security related issues, please e-mail me instead of using the issue tracker.

📑 Changelog

A complete list of all notable changes to this package can be found on the releases page.

📜 License

The MIT License (MIT). Please see License File for more information.