stephanschuler / from-php

From PHP

This package aims to create config files in various formats out of PHP code.

Example input file "config.json.php":

<?php
return [
    'foo' => 'bar',
    'now' => new \DateTimeImmutable(),
];

Example output file "config.json":

{
    "foo": "bar",
    "now": {
        "date": "2020-09-30 23:39:05.662150",
        "timezone_type": 3,
        "timezone": "UTC"
    }
}

Why?

Sometimes config files are short and simple. There is nothing wrong with those. Stick to the original format.

Some config files are huge with lots of repeating fragments. Those could be created programmatically, if only JSON or YAML supported loops and conditions. Using not only the PHP array format but actual PHP code introduces every control structure the PHP language provides.

Sometimes configuration is complicated just because there are so many options and option names and values don't stick to a limited dictionary or grammar. Here using some interfaces and serializable classes might come in handy.

What target formats are supported?

Currently there's JSON and YAML.

How does it work?

The run script just takes a file name that ends with ".something.php" and basically evaluates it. It's not actually the PHP eval call but its really close.

The source file is supposed to return the configuration data in a way that can be handled by json_encode.

Finally the result is dumped to another file named just like the original one but without the ".php" file type.

Integration:

My primary use case is using this file with PhpStorm. Ideally it gets automatically executed whenever I edit a configuration file.

Step one is to create a so called "scope", which is a pattern matching some file and folder names.

See: https://www.jetbrains.com/help/phpstorm/settings-scopes.html#legend

The actual pattern is "file:*.json.php" for JSON files and "file:*.yaml.php" for YAML files. I coll mine "JSON-PHP" and "YAML-PHP".

Step two is creating a file watcher. Select "File Type" PHP and set "Scope" to JSON-PHP to identify the file, point "Program" to the run script of this repository and provide $FilePath$ as the "Argument".

See: https://www.jetbrains.com/help/phpstorm/using-file-watchers.html