Composer is a great tool to import php packages hosted on packagist.org. All the packages hosted on packagist are public packages and anyone can use them with in their package.

In this article, I am going to show you

• how to create a composer package
• Host it on github
• Submit to packagist.org
• Use the package in an existing project using composer.

First, We are going to create a simple hello world composer php package.

1. Create composer package

create a directory called hello-world-package.

1mkdir hello-world-package && cd hello-world-package

Every composer package must have a composer.json file in the root directory. composer.json file holds information about a package like its name, dependencies, autoload classes, etc.

Create a new file called composer.json in the project root directory.

1sudo nano composer.json

Copy and paste the following code.

 1{
 2    "name": "your-github-username/hello-world-package",
 3    "description": "A hello world composer private package.",
 4    "autoload": {
 5        "psr-4": {
 6            "YourGithubUserName\\HelloWorldPackage\\": "src/"
 7        }
 8    },
 9    "minimum-stability": "dev",
10    "prefer-stable": true
11}

Replace your-github-username with your github profile name and save the file.

Full composer.json file schema can be found here

Now that we have our composer.json file all setup, We can start writing actual code.

Create a new directory called src in the project root.

1mkdir src

Create a file called HelloWorld.php inside the src directory.

1sudo nano HelloWorld.php

Copy and paste the below php code into the file and save the file.

 1<?php
 2 
 3namespace HelloWorldPackage;
 4 
 5class HelloWorld
 6{
 7    public static function sayHello()
 8    {
 9        echo "Hello World";
10    }
11}

Now our package is complete and ready to be distributed to the world. We first need to host this package on github before we start using it.

2. Setup Github Repository

• create an empty repository called hello-world-package in your github account.
• Mark the repository as public.

In order to host packages on packagist.org and use them with composer, All the packages in github must be marked as public. I wrote a separate article on how to use composer with private repositories.

3. Sync package with github

Now that we have our package and github repository ready, We can push our package code to github. - Navigate to your project root directory in a terminal - Run git init to initialize your package as a github repository. - If you are using https for git, Run the following command

1git remote add origin https://github.com/your-github-username/hello-world-package.git

• If you are using ssh for git, Run the following command

1git remote add origin [email protected]:your-github-username/hello-world-package.git

• Replace your-github-username with your github username before running the above command.
• Commit and push the package code to your github repository by running the following commands

1git add .
2git commit -m "my first composer package"
3git push --set-upstream origin master

4. Release package

Our package is finally on github. But before we can make use of our package, We need to release our version on github and provide a version label.

• go to https://github.com/your-github-username/hello-world-package
• click on releases tab.
• click on create a new release button.
• Give a version number, Title, and short info about the release(For version number, It is recommended to follow semantic versioning).
• Click on publish release button to release the package.

5. Host package on packagist.org

• Go to packagist.org and create an account if you do not have yet.
• Once logged in, Click on submit in the navigation menu
• Enter your github repository url
• If your composer.json file is valid, It will display the package name. Confirm and submit your package.

After successfully submitting your package to packagist, You can access it from the url https://packagist.org/packages/<your-username>/<package-name>

6. Import the package in a project

Now that our package is all setup on packagist.org, We can start importing and using it in our existing projects.

Import your package by running

1composer require <your-username>/<your-package-name>

Add the composer autoload file at the beginning of script(If you are not already doing it)

1<?php
2 
3require 'path-to-vendor-directory/autoload.php';

You can start calling the method in the package as below

1<?php
2 
3require 'path-to-vendor-directory/autoload.php';
4 
5 
6\YourGithubUserName\HelloWorldPackage\HelloWorld::sayHello();

Tips for creating composer packages

• Composer package names can only contain letters, numbers and hypehns.
• Composer package names cannot contain uppercase characters.
• It is recommended to keep composer package names short and memorable.
• Add proper keywords, so your package can be found when the user is searching for it on packagist.org
• It is recommended to follow semantic versioning while versioning your package.