Laravel Controller load files due to ClassLoader and incorrect composer files

Question

Ok, newbie at Laravel. I used composer to download laravel. It created a directory structure like...

  vendor\laravel\laravel\app
  vendor\laravel\laravel\bootstrap
  vendor\laravel\laravel\public
  vendor\laravel\framework\....
  vendor\laravel\laravel\composer.json

along with many other vendor and laravel directories.

and where my initial composer.json file was in the root directory.

I moved the contents of the vendor\laravel\laravel directory to the top level so that I have a directory structure like...

   app\...
   bootstrap\...
   public\...
   vendor\laravel\framework\...
   composer.json
   vendor\ many other directories...

I updated the index.php directory so that it referred to the new locations of the bootstrap\autoload.php and bootstrap\start.php directories.

I can load the index.php and I get the Laravel image map signifying that all is working.

So, now I go and modify the routes.php to be...

Route::controller('home', 'HomeController');

and try to load the home directory. I get the error...

"include(D:\dev\wamp\www\ltest3\vendor/laravel/laravel/app/controllers/BaseController.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory"

The problem is that the vendor\composer\autoload_classmap.php still has the old laravel\app controller mappings. e.g.

return array(
    'BaseController' => $vendorDir . '/laravel/laravel/app/controllers/BaseController.php',
    'DatabaseSeeder' => $vendorDir . '/laravel/laravel/app/database/seeds/DatabaseSeeder.php',
    'HomeController' => $vendorDir . '/laravel/laravel/app/controllers/HomeController.php',

instead of the new location at /app/controllers/

If I try to run composer update on the composer.json in my root directory, I get error after awhile of processing...

 Failed to execute git status --porcelain --untracked-files=no

So, not sure how to get composer to update the autoload classmap to use my new directory location.

Do people normally leave the vendor\laravel\laravel directory in is original location?

Seems that the composer will probably attempt to update the laravel directory again, but not sure since I get the error.

Here is my full composer.json in the root directory. This was the one that was originally in the vendor\laravel\laravel directory and created by other initial composer run, maybe that is problem.

{
    "name": "laravel/laravel",
    "description": "The Laravel Framework.",
    "keywords": ["framework", "laravel"],
    "license": "MIT",
    "require": {
        "laravel/framework": "4.1.*"
    },
    "autoload": {
        "classmap": [
            "app/commands",
            "app/controllers",
            "app/models",
            "app/database/migrations",
            "app/database/seeds",
            "app/tests/TestCase.php"
        ]
    },
    "scripts": {
        "post-install-cmd": [
            "php artisan clear-compiled",
            "php artisan optimize"
        ],
        "post-update-cmd": [
            "php artisan clear-compiled",
            "php artisan optimize"
        ],
        "post-create-project-cmd": [
            "php artisan key:generate"
        ]
    },
    "config": {
        "preferred-install": "dist"
    },
    "minimum-stability": "stable"
}

How did you create the project initially? Because that's a funky looking directory structure. Your project root should have a structure similar to Laravel's default app structure, plus a vendor folder with all of the dependencies. — Aken Roberts
You should never touch the vendor dir, as in the next composer update any previous changes will be overwritten. What was the command you used to create the project? — user2094178
I created a simple composer.json with a require of laravel/laravel : v4.1.27 in my top level directory and then ran composer (from NetBeans IDE). It created a very extensive vendor directory with laraval\laravel\app\... laraval\laravel\bootstrap\... laravel\framework\.... directories. The directory structure is as shown in your link, but way down in the vendor directory. There was not a top level app\... boostrap\... created — Ron
you all got me searching again for how to install laravel. I think I did it wrong. I am now installing it by running composer create-project laravel/laravel and it looks like I am now getting the proper directory structure. have app, bootstrap, etc. at the top level and a vendor directory. Will update soon... — Ron
was making good progress now halted again. It was creating all the directories, looked like working until it got to retrieving FileSystem.git, then it gets error... "Failed to clone [email protected]:symfony/Filesystem.git via git, https, ssh protocols, aborting." Previous files it had warning about https, but still downloaded the source. Now that it is aborted, not sure how to resolve this error or continue where it left off. There is no composer.json in the root directory and I can't run the "create-project" again. — Ron

Keith Mifsud Keith Mifsud · Accepted Answer · 2014-04-25T06:14:07

All vendor files whether they belong to Laravel or third party should be in the same location /vendor. This is not just a amtter of mapping in bootstrap but this is important for when you need to update any package in composer. You might need to do this on a delicate environment so why not keep it as it should be? Is there a reason?

Composer is used on many other frameworks and I believe that in all of them you need a vendor directory.

Laravel Controller load files due to ClassLoader and incorrect composer files

2 Answers