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FAQs

What version required of Composer?

See the documentation: Installation.

How does the plugin work?

To add dependencies of asset in Composer, the plugin uses the VCS repositories to add each repository of a required asset.

However, to retrieve the repository of an asset automatically, the plugin needs to add a Composer 'Repository' operating in the same way than the 'Packagist' registry, but dedicated to the NPM and Bower registries. Of course, it’s still possible to add an asset’s VCS repository manually.

Once the VCS repository is selected, Composer downloads the package definition of the main branch, together with the list of branches and tags. Of course, a conversion of NPM or Bower package definitions is made. Note that the definitions of each package will be taken at the time Composer needs it (in the Solver).

This way, the plugin makes it possible to add a VCS repository by simulating the presence of the composer.json file, and there is no need to add this file manually if the package is registered in the registry of NPM or Bower, and if the file bower.json or package.json is present in the repository.

Why does the plugin use the VCS repository?

There are already several possibilities for managing assets in a PHP project:

Install Node.js and use NPM or Bower command line in addition to Composer command line
Do #1, but add Composer scripts to automate the process
Include assets directly in the project (not recommended)
Create a repository with all assets and include the composer.json file (and use Packagist or an VCS repository)
Add a package repository in composer.json with a direct download link
Create a Satis or Packagist server
And possibly other creative options

In the case of a complete project in PHP, it shouldn't be necessary to use several tools (PHP, Nodejs, Composer, NPM, Bower, Grunt, etc.) to simply install these assets in your project. This eliminates the possibilities 1, 2 and 3.

Solution 6 is unfortunately not feasible, because it would regularly collect all packages in the registries of NPM and Bower, then analyze each and every branch and every tag of each package. The packages would not be updated immediately, and the requests limit of API would be reached very quickly.

The solutions 4 and 5 are standard in Composer, but they are very onerous to manage. The plugin allows exactly opting for this solution, while sorely simplifying these solutions.

Why is Composer slow when the plugin retrieves the package definitions?

For the VCS repositories, the native system of Composer retrieves the package definitions for all branches and all tags. If these are numerous, it may become very slow. However, the plugin uses a caching system, allowing to not make new requests to retrieve the definitions of packages. The next commands install/update will be much faster.

The performance to get the new package definitions could be even higher, but this requires a change directly into Composer (see composer/composer#3282).

Why are the definitions from multiple versions of package retrieved to install?

For the install, the Solver must verify that each version available answer all project constraints.

Therefore, if constraints of version are 'flexible', then the Solver must retrieve the definitions of package for each version who answer the constraint.

So, more you specify the version, less Composer will try to retrieve the definitions of package.

Why are all the versions definitions retrieved for all packages to update?

For the update, The Solver must obtain all of the definitions for each package and for all available versions.

The plugin uses the system of VCS repository, and this can significantly slow the retrieving of the definitions of packages. Fortunately, a caching system avoids to download every time all versions.

With the version >1.0.0-beta3 of the plugin, a new import filter lets you import only package definitions greater than or equal to the installed versions. In this way, the performances are dramatically improved.

Composer throws an exception stating that the version does not exist

If Composer throws an exception stating that the version does not exist, whereas the version exists, but it isn't imported, it means that this new package version is lesser than the installed version.

Of course, 3 solutions can work around the problem:

delete the vendor directory, do the update
disable temporarily the import filter in the config section
add the dependency in the root Composer package:

add the dependency in the root Composer package with the required version (the version not found)
put the option config.fxp-asset.optimize-with-conjunctive to false,
do the update,
remove the dependency in the root Composer package
remove the option config.fxp-asset.optimize-with-conjunctive
do the update to sync the lock file,

The solution 1 is the easiest and fastest.

See the documentation: Disable the import filter using the installed packages

How to reduce the number of requests for getting the package definitions?

For the install, the more you specify the versions in your dependencies, less Composer will try to retrieve the definitions of the packages.

For the update, in contrast, this is unfortunately not the case, because Composer must retrieve all the definitions of the packages.

But a trick allows to filter the import of package definitions to the install, but also for the update:

Add directly to your root Composer package, the dependencies that you want to filter. Of course, all constraints of versions are functional (exact version, range, wildcard, tilde operator). In this way, all versions are not accepted by the constraint of version and they will be skipped to the importation, and will not be injected in the Pool.

See the documentation: Reduce the number of requests for getting the package definitions

How to increase the PHP memory limit?

See the official documentation of Composer: Memory limits errors.

Why should I create a token for Github?

It's a rate limit of Github API. In anonymous access, Github at a greatly reduced limit (60/hr), and you must be logged with a token for have a much higher limit (5 000/hr).

The problem also exists using Nodejs NPM and Bower.

If you want more details: [Github Personal API Tokens] (https://github.com/blog/1509-personal-api-tokens)

See the official documentation of Composer: API rate limit and OAuth tokens.

How to add a Github token in the configuration?