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# Repositories
This chapter will explain the concept of packages and repositories, what kinds
of repositories are available, and how they work.
## Concepts
Before we look at the different types of repositories that exist, we need to
understand some of the basic concepts that composer is built on.
### Package
Composer is a dependency manager. It installs packages locally. A package is
essentially just a directory containing something. In this case it is PHP
code, but in theory it could be anything. And it contains a package
description which has a name and a version. The name and the version are used
to identify the package.
In fact, internally composer sees every version as a separate package. While
this distinction does not matter when you are using composer, it's quite
important when you want to change it.
In addition to the name and the version, there is useful metadata. The information
most relevant for installation is the source definition, which describes where
to get the package contents. The package data points to the contents of the
package. And there are two options here: dist and source.
**Dist:** The dist is a packaged version of the package data. Usually a
released version, usually a stable release.
**Source:** The source is used for development. This will usually originate
from a source code repository, such as git. You can fetch this when you want
to modify the downloaded package.
Packages can supply either of these, or even both. Depending on certain
factors, such as user-supplied options and stability of the package, one will
be preferred.
### Repository
A repository is a package source. It's a list of packages/versions. Composer
will look in all your repositories to find the packages your project requires.
By default only the Packagist repository is registered in Composer. You can
add more repositories to your project by declaring them in `composer.json`.
Repositories are only available to the root package and the repositories
defined in your dependencies will not be loaded. Read the
[FAQ entry](faqs/why-can't-composer-load-repositories-recursively.md) if you
want to learn why.
## Types
### Composer
The main repository type is the `composer` repository. It uses a single
`packages.json` file that contains all of the package metadata.
This is also the repository type that packagist uses. To reference a
`composer` repository, just supply the path before the `packages.json` file.
In case of packagist, that file is located at `/packages.json`, so the URL of
the repository would be `packagist.org`. For `example.org/packages.json` the
repository URL would be `example.org`.
#### packages
The only required field is `packages`. The JSON structure is as follows:
{
"packages": {
"vendor/package-name": {
"dev-master": { @composer.json },
"1.0.x-dev": { @composer.json },
"0.0.1": { @composer.json },
"1.0.0": { @composer.json }
}
}
}
The `@composer.json` marker would be the contents of the `composer.json` from
that package version including as a minimum:
* name
* version
* dist or source
Here is a minimal package definition:
{
"name": "smarty/smarty",
"version": "3.1.7",
"dist": {
"url": "http://www.smarty.net/files/Smarty-3.1.7.zip",
"type": "zip"
}
}
It may include any of the other fields specified in the [schema](04-schema.md).
#### notify-batch
The `notify-batch` field allows you to specify an URL that will be called
every time a user installs a package. The URL can be either an absolute path
(that will use the same domain as the repository) or a fully qualified URL.
An example value:
{
"notify-batch": "/downloads/"
}
For `example.org/packages.json` containing a `monolog/monolog` package, this
would send a `POST` request to `example.org/downloads/` with following
JSON request body:
{
"downloads": [
{"name": "monolog/monolog", "version": "1.2.1.0"},
]
}
The version field will contain the normalized representation of the version
number.
This field is optional.
#### includes
For larger repositories it is possible to split the `packages.json` into
multiple files. The `includes` field allows you to reference these additional
files.
An example:
{
"includes": {
"packages-2011.json": {
"sha1": "525a85fb37edd1ad71040d429928c2c0edec9d17"
},
"packages-2012-01.json": {
"sha1": "897cde726f8a3918faf27c803b336da223d400dd"
},
"packages-2012-02.json": {
"sha1": "26f911ad717da26bbcac3f8f435280d13917efa5"
}
}
}
The SHA-1 sum of the file allows it to be cached and only re-requested if the
hash changed.
This field is optional. You probably don't need it for your own custom
repository.
#### provider-includes and providers-url
For very large repositories like packagist.org using the so-called provider
files is the preferred method. The `provider-includes` field allows you to
list a set of files that list package names provided by this repository. The
hash should be a sha256 of the files in this case.
The `providers-url` describes how provider files are found on the server. It
is an absolute path from the repository root.
An example:
{
"provider-includes": {
"providers-a.json": {
"sha256": "f5b4bc0b354108ef08614e569c1ed01a2782e67641744864a74e788982886f4c"
},
"providers-b.json": {
"sha256": "b38372163fac0573053536f5b8ef11b86f804ea8b016d239e706191203f6efac"
}
},
"providers-url": "/p/%package%$%hash%.json"
}
Those files contain lists of package names and hashes to verify the file
integrity, for example:
{
"providers": {
"acme/foo": {
"sha256": "38968de1305c2e17f4de33aea164515bc787c42c7e2d6e25948539a14268bb82"
},
"acme/bar": {
"sha256": "4dd24c930bd6e1103251306d6336ac813b563a220d9ca14f4743c032fb047233"
}
}
}
The file above declares that acme/foo and acme/bar can be found in this
repository, by loading the file referenced by `providers-url`, replacing
`%package%` by the package name and `%hash%` by the sha256 field. Those files
themselves just contain package definitions as described [above](#packages).
This field is optional. You probably don't need it for your own custom
repository.
#### stream options
The `packages.json` file is loaded using a PHP stream. You can set extra options
on that stream using the `options` parameter. You can set any valid PHP stream
context option. See [Context options and parameters](http://php.net/manual/en/context.php)
for more information.
### VCS
VCS stands for version control system. This includes versioning systems like
git, svn or hg. Composer has a repository type for installing packages from
these systems.
#### Loading a package from a VCS repository
There are a few use cases for this. The most common one is maintaining your
own fork of a third party library. If you are using a certain library for your
project and you decide to change something in the library, you will want your
project to use the patched version. If the library is on GitHub (this is the
case most of the time), you can simply fork it there and push your changes to
your fork. After that you update the project's `composer.json`. All you have
to do is add your fork as a repository and update the version constraint to
point to your custom branch. For version constraint naming conventions see
[Libraries](02-libraries.md) for more information.
Example assuming you patched monolog to fix a bug in the `bugfix` branch:
{
"repositories": [
{
"type": "vcs",
"url": "https://github.com/igorw/monolog"
}
],
"require": {
"monolog/monolog": "dev-bugfix"
}
}
When you run `php composer.phar update`, you should get your modified version
of `monolog/monolog` instead of the one from packagist.
Note that you should not rename the package unless you really intend to fork
it in the long term, and completely move away from the original package.
Composer will correctly pick your package over the original one since the
custom repository has priority over packagist. If you want to rename the
package, you should do so in the default (often master) branch and not in a
feature branch, since the package name is taken from the default branch.
If other dependencies rely on the package you forked, it is possible to
inline-alias it so that it matches a constraint that it otherwise would not.
For more information [see the aliases article](articles/aliases.md).
#### Using private repositories
Exactly the same solution allows you to work with your private repositories at
GitHub and BitBucket:
{
"require": {
"vendor/my-private-repo": "dev-master"
},
"repositories": [
{
"type": "vcs",
"url": "git@bitbucket.org:vendor/my-private-repo.git"
}
]
}
The only requirement is the installation of SSH keys for a git client.
#### Git alternatives
Git is not the only version control system supported by the VCS repository.
The following are supported:
* **Git:** [git-scm.com](http://git-scm.com)
* **Subversion:** [subversion.apache.org](http://subversion.apache.org)
* **Mercurial:** [mercurial.selenic.com](http://mercurial.selenic.com)
To get packages from these systems you need to have their respective clients
installed. That can be inconvenient. And for this reason there is special
support for GitHub and BitBucket that use the APIs provided by these sites, to
fetch the packages without having to install the version control system. The
VCS repository provides `dist`s for them that fetch the packages as zips.
* **GitHub:** [github.com](https://github.com) (Git)
* **BitBucket:** [bitbucket.org](https://bitbucket.org) (Git and Mercurial)
The VCS driver to be used is detected automatically based on the URL. However,
should you need to specify one for whatever reason, you can use `git`, `svn` or
`hg` as the repository type instead of `vcs`.
#### Subversion Options
Since Subversion has no native concept of branches and tags, Composer assumes
by default that code is located in `$url/trunk`, `$url/branches` and
`$url/tags`. If your repository has a different layout you can change those
values. For example if you used capitalized names you could configure the
repository like this:
{
"repositories": [
{
"type": "vcs",
"url": "http://svn.example.org/projectA/",
"trunk-path": "Trunk",
"branches-path": "Branches",
"tags-path": "Tags"
}
]
}
If you have no branches or tags directory you can disable them entirely by
setting the `branches-path` or `tags-path` to `false`.
If the package is in a sub-directory, e.g. `/trunk/foo/bar/composer.json` and
`/tags/1.0/foo/bar/composer.json`, then you can make composer access it by
setting the `"package-path"` option to the sub-directory, in this example it
would be `"package-path": "foo/bar/"`.
### PEAR
It is possible to install packages from any PEAR channel by using the `pear`
repository. Composer will prefix all package names with `pear-{channelName}/` to
avoid conflicts. All packages are also aliased with prefix `pear-{channelAlias}/`
Example using `pear2.php.net`:
{
"repositories": [
{
"type": "pear",
"url": "http://pear2.php.net"
}
],
"require": {
"pear-pear2.php.net/PEAR2_Text_Markdown": "*",
"pear-pear2/PEAR2_HTTP_Request": "*"
}
}
In this case the short name of the channel is `pear2`, so the
`PEAR2_HTTP_Request` package name becomes `pear-pear2/PEAR2_HTTP_Request`.
> **Note:** The `pear` repository requires doing quite a few requests per
> package, so this may considerably slow down the installation process.
#### Custom vendor alias
It is possible to alias PEAR channel packages with a custom vendor name.
Example:
Suppose you have a private PEAR repository and wish to use Composer to
incorporate dependencies from a VCS. Your PEAR repository contains the
following packages:
* `BasePackage`
* `IntermediatePackage`, which depends on `BasePackage`
* `TopLevelPackage1` and `TopLevelPackage2` which both depend on `IntermediatePackage`
Without a vendor alias, Composer will use the PEAR channel name as the
vendor portion of the package name:
* `pear-pear.foobar.repo/BasePackage`
* `pear-pear.foobar.repo/IntermediatePackage`
* `pear-pear.foobar.repo/TopLevelPackage1`
* `pear-pear.foobar.repo/TopLevelPackage2`
Suppose at a later time you wish to migrate your PEAR packages to a
Composer repository and naming scheme, and adopt the vendor name of `foobar`.
Projects using your PEAR packages would not see the updated packages, since
they have a different vendor name (`foobar/IntermediatePackage` vs
`pear-pear.foobar.repo/IntermediatePackage`).
By specifying `vendor-alias` for the PEAR repository from the start, you can
avoid this scenario and future-proof your package names.
To illustrate, the following example would get the `BasePackage`,
`TopLevelPackage1`, and `TopLevelPackage2` packages from your PEAR repository
and `IntermediatePackage` from a Github repository:
{
"repositories": [
{
"type": "git",
"url": "https://github.com/foobar/intermediate.git"
},
{
"type": "pear",
"url": "http://pear.foobar.repo",
"vendor-alias": "foobar"
}
],
"require": {
"foobar/TopLevelPackage1": "*",
"foobar/TopLevelPackage2": "*"
}
}
### Package
If you want to use a project that does not support composer through any of the
means above, you still can define the package yourself by using a `package`
repository.
Basically, you define the same information that is included in the `composer`
repository's `packages.json`, but only for a single package. Again, the
minimum required fields are `name`, `version`, and either of `dist` or
`source`.
Here is an example for the smarty template engine:
{
"repositories": [
{
"type": "package",
"package": {
"name": "smarty/smarty",
"version": "3.1.7",
"dist": {
"url": "http://www.smarty.net/files/Smarty-3.1.7.zip",
"type": "zip"
},
"source": {
"url": "http://smarty-php.googlecode.com/svn/",
"type": "svn",
"reference": "tags/Smarty_3_1_7/distribution/"
},
"autoload": {
"classmap": ["libs/"]
}
}
}
],
"require": {
"smarty/smarty": "3.1.*"
}
}
Typically you would leave the source part off, as you don't really need it.
> **Note**: This repository type has a few limitations and should be avoided
> whenever possible:
>
> - Composer will not update the package unless you change the `version` field.
> - Composer will not update the commit references, so if you use `master` as
> reference you will have to delete the package to force an update, and will
> have to deal with an unstable lock file.
## Hosting your own
While you will probably want to put your packages on packagist most of the time,
there are some use cases for hosting your own repository.
* **Private company packages:** If you are part of a company that uses composer
for their packages internally, you might want to keep those packages private.
* **Separate ecosystem:** If you have a project which has its own ecosystem,
and the packages aren't really reusable by the greater PHP community, you
might want to keep them separate to packagist. An example of this would be
wordpress plugins.
For hosting your own packages, a native `composer` type of repository is
recommended, which provides the best performance.
There are a few tools that can help you create a `composer` repository.
### Packagist
The underlying application used by packagist is open source. This means that you
can just install your own copy of packagist, re-brand, and use it. It's really
quite straight-forward to do. However due to its size and complexity, for most
small and medium sized companies willing to track a few packages will be better
off using Satis.
Packagist is a Symfony2 application, and it is [available on
GitHub](https://github.com/composer/packagist). It uses composer internally and
acts as a proxy between VCS repositories and the composer users. It holds a list
of all VCS packages, periodically re-crawls them, and exposes them as a composer
repository.
To set your own copy, simply follow the instructions from the [packagist
github repository](https://github.com/composer/packagist).
### Satis
Satis is a static `composer` repository generator. It is a bit like an ultra-
lightweight, static file-based version of packagist.
You give it a `composer.json` containing repositories, typically VCS and
package repository definitions. It will fetch all the packages that are
`require`d and dump a `packages.json` that is your `composer` repository.
Check [the satis GitHub repository](https://github.com/composer/satis) and
the [Satis article](articles/handling-private-packages-with-satis.md) for more
information.
### Artifact
There are some cases, when there is no ability to have one of the previously
mentioned repository types online, even the VCS one. Typical example could be
cross-organisation library exchange through built artifacts. Of course, most
of the times they are private. To simplify maintenance, one can simply use a
repository of type `artifact` with a folder containing ZIP archives of those
private packages:
{
"repositories": [
{
"type": "artifact",
"url": "path/to/directory/with/zips/"
}
],
"require": {
"private-vendor-one/core": "15.6.2",
"private-vendor-two/connectivity": "*",
"acme-corp/parser": "10.3.5"
}
}
Each zip artifact is just a ZIP archive with `composer.json` in root folder:
$ unzip -l acme-corp-parser-10.3.5.zip
composer.json
...
If there are two archives with different versions of a package, they are both
imported. When an archive with a newer version is added in the artifact folder
and you run `update`, that version will be imported as well and Composer will
update to the latest version.
## Disabling Packagist
You can disable the default Packagist repository by adding this to your
`composer.json`:
{
"repositories": [
{
"packagist": false
}
]
}
← [Schema](04-schema.md) | [Community](06-community.md) →
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