Add Git Composer Dependency

It’s really easy to add a dependency to your PHP project using composer when the package is available in the packagist library.

However, sometimes you may need to include an open-source project or library that is not in the packagist library, and the project does not explicitly provide a composer.json. For example, I wanted to try out an Open Graph meta tag parser project on GitHub. However, Scott doesn’t have a composer.json defined in his project.

First, I added a require for the project.

"require" : {
  "scottmac/opengraph" : "*"
}

Then, I added a new repository source for the project files on GitHub. Since there are no specific releases or versions, I just put in “0.0.1” as the version. I also copied the zip file download path from GitHub for the distribution URL.

"repositories" : [
  ...,
  {
    "type": "package",
    "package": {
      "name": "scottmac/opengraph",
      "version": "0.0.1",
      "source": {
        "type" : "git",
        "url" : "git://github.com/scottmac/opengraph.git",
        "reference" : "0.0.1"
      },
      "dist": {
        "url": "https://github.com/scottmac/opengraph/archive/master.zip",
        "type": "zip"
      }
    }
  }
]

Lastly, when I run composer update, the latest release of the project is downloaded and placed in my Vendors folder. Now, I can go ahead and test out the library in my project.

$ composer update

Complete Example

Here is the complete example code for including a library from GitHub that does not have a composer.json file.

{
  "name": "com.brianflove",
  "repositories": [
    {
      "type": "package",
      "package": {
        "name": "pear-pear.cakephp.org/CakePHP",
        "version": "2.4.1",
        "source": {
          "type" : "git",
          "url" : "git://github.com/cakephp/cakephp.git",
          "reference" : "2.4.1"
        },
        "repositories": [
          {
            "type": "pear",
            "url": "http://pear.cakephp.org"
          }
        ],
        "bin" : ["lib/Cake/Console/cake"]
      }
    },
    {
      "type": "package",
      "package": {
        "name": "scottmac/opengraph",
        "version": "0.0.1",
        "source": {
          "type" : "git",
          "url" : "git://github.com/scottmac/opengraph.git",
          "reference" : "0.0.1"
        },
        "dist": {
                  "url": "https://github.com/scottmac/opengraph/archive/master.zip",
                  "type": "zip"
              }
      }
    }
  ],

  "config": {
        "vendor-dir": "Vendor/"
    },

  "extra": {
    "installer-paths": {
      "www/Plugin/DebugKit": ["cakephp/debug_kit"],
      "www/Plugin/BoostCake": ["slywalker/boost_cake"]
    }
  },

  "require" :
  {
    "php": ">=5.3",
    "pear-pear.cakephp.org/CakePHP": ">=2.4.0",
    "cakephp/debug_kit": "2.2.*",
    "scottmac/opengraph" : "*"
  }
}