How can I add a composer.json to a static TYPO3 project?

Question

I am using a working TYPO3 7.6.14 environment with many extensions. Now I want to add a composer.json file manually. I do not want to create a new project which will download the latest TYPO3 core and TYPO3 extensions. I am afraid that this could accidently overwrite some extension's PHP files. I need a safe way to add a composer.json file which will not change the present TYPO3 PHP files automatically. I prefer to download TYPO3 and the extensions manually. Therefore I do not want to use the composer mode. I must find a way to prevent composer from overwriting my self written PHP files.

I need a composer.json file because I want to add the external TCPDF library which is on its own place on the file system and not inside of a vendor folder inside of TYPO3. And the file ext_autoload.php is not supported any more by TYPO3 7.6.

I have read the https://usetypo3.com/typo3-and-composer.html#c51 recommendations. But it only shows the way how to create a new TYPO3 project using the command line and the composer command. Is it also possible to download a composer.json file into a TYPO3 folder (which?) in order to tell the autoloader where it will find the external TCPDF library? I have unzipped the TCPDF file under /var/www/html/TCPDF-master/tcpdf.php . I want to use TCPDF, TYPO3 and its extensions unchanged and never updated by any composer command.

Oliver Hader Oliver Hader · Accepted Answer · 2016-12-30T21:53:14

Introducing Composer for not using it's features seems a bit strange to me, but yes, it's possible to define a dedicated version or commit-hash in a repository to disable updates.

However, I would recommend to make use of the tilde ~ operator to enable updates on the accordant branch, to e.g. include security updates automatically. For TYPO3 CMS this dependency would look like the following, to stay on the 7.6 branch:

"require": {
  "typo3/cms": "~7.6.14"
}

Find further details on how to declare versions in the Composer documentation.

Besides that, it seems, that you're not using Composer at all for the root project. You could then create a wrapper extension for TCPDF with one of these options:

use Composer for that extension to require TCPDF and load the generated autoload file (e.g. in typo3conf/ext/tcpdf/vendor/autoload.php) in your wrapper extension
directly copy & paste TCPDF's source (which seems to be the scenario you're up to) and add the autoloading information to ext_emconf.php, which is similar to previous ext_autoload.php - find details about that in a blog post about class loading

How can I add a composer.json to a static TYPO3 project?

1 Answers