Provide builtin file discovery (events, commands, any pattern)

[pionl]

Hi,

With increasing packages and builtin commands (like searching for commands / events) that searching for files in app directory (for registering its own "map", reading files, etc) it would be great to introduce a way how packages can register its own patterns (or matching logic) and a closure / handle class (with dependency injection in class).

• This single command would make possible to "register" all files for all packages at once
• It could be cache via optimize by Laravel it self
• Registration would be done in ServiceProvider::register

Is this what Laravel would support? I can make the contribution.

Thanks for the info,
Martin

[Sophist-UK]

I cannot claim to be an expert about Composer autoload, however it does seem to me that it is not a great idea to autoload masses of files on every single boot, when many of the files loaded may never be called. In a small Laravel application, loading everything might not be a problem, but in a very large application there might be some definite performance overheads for loading unnecessary files.

IMO it would be better for each package to register its own single autoload boot file. Each package can then create an intelligent load strategy that loads the minimal files on actual boot, and then loads additional files when they turn out to be needed. You could even have a default strategy to load every PHP file in /app/** which would mimic the current approach.

So for example, a boot to run a command-line call would only need to autoload files needed for the command that is called. Or files used for a particular route could be loaded by middleware depending on the URL route etc.

Composer could provide some callable methods to e.g. load all php files in a specified path-mask e.g. /modules/*/models/**, and Laravel might provide some derivatives of this and some middleware functionality.

P.S. I guess that it is not strictly necessary for Composer to change - it is up to each package to define what files are autoloaded by Composer, so I guess that Laravel could create its own bootstrap autoload functionality without any changes to Composer.

[pionl]

Thanks for pointing that out. As it says, it uses Reflection i.e. to find classes that have already been created by importing php files. Importing is a pre-requisite for Event Discovery.

Do not get confused by the terminology, if you check source code it uses Finder class (for filesystem) to find listeners and get the event from class from it and "register" the listener to the event. This is very easy to use and helps you to safe some time (I personally do not use this).

In development you are using this autoload and still it's usable. In production you will call event:cache that will cache everything.

What I'm proposing to centralize this:

• 1 "cache" command that would cache results from service providers that uses "file" discovery to register "some stuff"

Thats all :)

Anyway just want to point you this:

If you are importing a class that in PHP file, it does not mean that it is loading the class. It's a just pointer to a class.

Until you use new, class_implements and other functions it will try auto load the class (using PHP autoload + composer).

[Sophist-UK]

Do not get confused by the terminology, if you check source code it uses Finder class (for filesystem) to find listeners and get the event from class from it and "register" the listener to the event. This is very easy to use and helps you to safe some time (I personally do not use this).

Do not get confused. Whilst https://github.com/laravel/framework/blob/9.x/src/Illuminate/Foundation/Events/DiscoverEvents.php uses Find, it does not repeat not import the files, assuming that these files have already been imported. Instead it uses the file name to guess the class used in the file, and then uses Reflection to get an object reference to that class from a string (which only works if the class name matches the file name and if the file has previously been imported. So my comment remains true - that Event discovery only works when the files have already been imported.

Composer autoload imports php files. Importing the php files reads the source code for the class contained therein and creates the base class in memory i.e. it loads the class. (This is NOT an instantiation of the class, but the class definition.) new creates an instance of the class, but you can use classes in a static way without instantiating them because they are already loaded.

So what you are talking about is, as I previously said, something entirely different to PHP Compose autoloading or PHP preloading.

[pionl]

Dude, I'm not talking about "importing" the files, you are talking about it from first comment.

This discussion is useless due the fact that apparently we are unable to understand each other. Do not bother responding ;)

Have a good day,

P.S:

Using use will not "import" the file... Here is an example https://onlinephp.io/c/ccae4

[Sophist-UK]

Ok - all that this PHP Sandbox example shows is that the ::class attribute has a default of returning regardless of whether the class has been imported or not.

TBH I was surprised - I would have expected an exception when it could not find the object to use, and another exception when you tried to get the ::class attribute for a non-existent class. However just because php 8.1 clearly doesn't work as I would expect it to, doesn't prove your point either.

In a recent comment you say

What I'm proposing to centralize this: 1 "cache" command that would cache results from service providers that uses "file" discovery to register "some stuff"

but I am still completely unclear what you mean by "file discovery" and what "some stuff" actually means. Perhaps some code examples might help clarify this i.e. examples of specific "stuff" that you might want to "discover" and "register" and how you have to do it now and how you might prefer to do it in the future.

Perhaps other people can understand your point as you currently describe it even if I cannot, but if not then I guess that this discussion is not going to go anywhere.

As for your comment:

This discussion is useless due the fact that apparently we are unable to understand each other. Do not bother responding ;)

I have said that we seem to be talking about different things and asked you to elaborate on what you are talking about and yet even now it still seems to me that autoload is what you are referring to because you haven't elaborated further except to talk about Event autodiscovery which you mis-described and then used a false example to attempt to illustrate why I am wrong.

There was no reason for you to be rude. I have been trying to ascertain what it is you are suggesting and telling you how I am interpreting it, but rather than elaborate instead you tell me I don't know how PHP works by referring to Laravel code, introducing that with a snide "Do not get confused." When I check the code and point out that you are incorrect, reflecting your snide remark back at you in doing so, rather than stick to facts and provide a more understandable explanation instead you tell me to shut-up. Please can we keep discussions here both polite and adult in nature.

[pionl]

I do not believe I'm being rude. I can say that I feel the same as you do from your style of communication ;) I'm just stating that I'm unable to express my self in way that is clear. I do not have the mental energy to continue this conversation and maybe in future I will be able to provide you better explanation what I mean that will help you understand the meaning of this all.

I believe this is better for both of use. As I said, have a good day and no hard feelings.

P.S: but thank you for even writing here some response, most of the questions are not answered at all :)