Package Development Flashcards
A Laravel application’s bootstrap/providers.php file contains the list of service providers that should be loaded by Laravel. However, instead of requiring users to manually add your service providers to the list, where can you register your service providers and facades?
You may define the provider in the extra section of your package’s composer.json file so that it is automatically loaded by Laravel.
What is a service provider?
Service providers are the connection point between your package and Laravel. A service provider is responsible for binding things into Laravel’s service container and informing Laravel where to load package resources such as views, configuration, and language files.
Which methods does a service provider contain?
register and boot
Where is the base ServiceProvider class located?
illuminate/support
How can you publish your package’s configuration file to your application’s config directory?
By calling the publishes method from the boot method of your service provider.
public function boot(): void
{
$this->publishes([
\_\_DIR\_\_.'/../config/example.php' => config_path('example.php'),
]);
}
What’s the point of merging your own package configuration file with the application’s published copy?
By merging them you can just take the changes the user has made, take the default configuration for everything the user didn’t define and then create a configuration for your application, that is set up the way the user wants it to be without them needing to pick something for every variable in your configuration.
How can you merge the values of your own and your application’s published copy of your configuration file?
By calling the mergeConfigFrom method within your service provider’s register method. It accepts the path to your package’s configuration file as the first argument and the name of the application’s copy of the configuration file as its second argument. For example:
public function register(): void
{
$this->mergeConfigFrom(
\_\_DIR\_\_.'/../config/example.php', 'example'
);
}
If your package contains routes, how can you load them if they have not been cached already?
Using the loadRoutesFrom method in the boot method of your service provider.
For example:
public function boot(): void
{
$this->loadRoutesFrom(\_\_DIR\_\_.'/../routes/web.php');
}
If your package contains database migrations, how can you inform Laravel that a given directory or file contains migrations?
By using the publishesMigrations method in your service provider’s boot method. When Laravel publishes the migrations, it will automatically update the timestamp within their filename to reflect the current date and time.
For example:
public function boot(): void
{
$this->publishesMigrations([
\_\_DIR\_\_.'/../database/migrations' => database_path('migrations'),
]);
}
How can you inform Laravel how to load your language files?
By using the loadTranslationsFrom method of your service providers boot method. For example:
public function boot(): void
{
$this->loadTranslationsFrom(\_\_DIR\_\_.'/../lang', 'example');
}
Package translation lines are referenced using the package::file.line syntax convention. So, you may load the example package’s welcome line from the messages file like so:
echo trans(‘courier::messages.welcome’);
How do you register your package’s views with Laravel?
To do so, you need to tell Laravel where the views are located. You may do this suing the service provider’s loadViewsFrom method. It accepts two arguments: the path to your view templates and your package’s name. For example, if your package’s name is example, you would add the following to your service provider’s boot method:
public function boot(): void
{
$this-loadViewsFrom(\_\_DIR\_\_.'/../resources/views', 'example');
}
Package views are referenced using the package::view syntax convention. So, once your view path is registered in a service provider, you may load the dashboard view from the example package like so:
Route::get('/dashboard', function () {
return view('example::dashboard');
});
If you are building a package that utilizes Blade components or placing components in non-conventional directories, how can you register your component class and its HTML tag alias?
When building packages that utilize Blade components or placing components in non-conventional directories, you need to manually register your component class and its HTML tag alias so that Laravel knows where to find the component. You should typically register your components in the boot method of your package’s service provider:
public function boot(): void
{
Blade::component('package-alert', AlertComponent::class);
}
Then you can render your component using its tag alias like so:<x-package-alert/>
Laravel’s built-in about Artisan command provides a synopsis of the application’s environment and configuration. How can you make your package push additional information to this command’s output?
Via the AboutCommand class. Typically, this information may be added from your package service provider’s boot method like so:
public function boot(): void
{
AboutCommand::add('My Package', fn () => ['Version' => '1.0.0']);
}
How can you register your package’s Artisan commands with Laravel?
By using the commands method in the boot method of your service provider. This method expects an array of command class names. Once the commands have been registered, you may execute them using the Artisan CLI:
public function boot(): void
{
if ($this->app->runningInConsole()) {
$this->commands([
InstallCommand::class,
NetworkCommand::class,
]);
}
}
Your package may have assets such as JavaScript, CSS and images. To publish these assets to the application’s public directory, which method of your service providers boot method do you have to use?
public function boot(): void
{
$this->publishes([
\_\_DIR\_\_.'/../public' => public_path('vendor/courier'),
], 'public');
}
Now, when your package’s users execute the vendor::public command, your assest will be copied to the specified publish location. Since users will typically need to overwrite the assets every time the package is updates, you may use the –force flag:
php artisan vendor:publish –tag=public –force
What do you need to do to allow the users to publish your package’s configuration files without being forced to publish your package’s assets?
You may do this by “tagging” them when calling the publishes method from a package’s service provider. For example, let’s use tags to define two publish groups for the courier package (courier-config and courier-migrations) in the boot method of your package’s service provider:
public function boot(): void
{
$this->publishes([
\_\_DIR\_\_.'/../config/package.php' => config_path('package.php')
], 'example-config');
$this->publishesMigrations([
\_\_DIR\_\_.'/../database/migrations/' => database_path('migrations']
], 'example-migrations');
}
Now your users may publish these groups separately by referencing their tag when executing the vendor::publish command:php artisan vendor:publish --tag=example-config
