Phing is a great tool (I'm using it as well), but in this article, I want to show you that some projects may not need it. Composer contains a powerful feature called "Scripts", which can be used to create a simple build script.

If you haven't read it yet, I suggest that you read my article 17 Tips for Using Composer Efficiently before reading this one.

Creating a build script for launching PHP_CodeSniffer

Let's say that you have installed PHP_CodeSniffer and you run it with this command:

vendor/bin/phpcs --standard=PSR2 src

You probably want your colleagues and CI server to run it with the same parameters. To do so, you need to store it somewhere. You can either create a build.xml for Phing or put it in a bash script (and batch file to cover Windows). Or you can leverage the power of Composer scripts.

Put the command to the composer.json file with all its parameters:

"scripts": { "phpcs": "phpcs --standard=PSR2 src" }

And run it this way:

# either explicitly: composer run-script phpcs # or via shortcut: composer phpcs

Tip: Use alias for running Composer

If you are launching Composer by typing composer (or even php composer.phar ) every time, you may want to save time by creating an alias for it.

On Windows, you need to create a .cmd file in a directory which is in the system PATH. I've created c:\dev\php\x.cmd with this content ( %* passes through all the parameters):

php c:\devweb\php\composer.phar %*

On Linux, you can add an alias to ~/.bashrc :

alias x="composer"

Now you can run Composer just by typing x and a command (e.g. x phpcs ).

Tip: Don't type whole Composer command name

Because Composer CLI is powered by Symfony Console, you can save some characters on unambiguous commands. Instead of writing composer update , it is enough to write composer up (or only x up if you also applied the previous tip)

Creating more complex build script

Let's start with an example:

"scripts": { "ci": [ "@phpcs", "@test" ], "phpcs": "phpcs --standard=PSR2 src", "test": "phpunit" }

I've added a new script called test which just launches PHPUnit with default configuration.

The ci script is more interesting. It is not an actual script, but a meta-script that references several other scripts. The referenced scripts are prefixed by @ . This way, you can create more complex scripts without duplication.

Launching Composer or PHP from scripts

You can use the @composer and @php commands to launch the same Composer or PHP executable that is running the script.

For example you may want to validate the composer.json file during CI build:

"scripts": { "ci": [ "@composer validate --no-check-all --strict", ... ] }

Or you want to use YAML validation that is available as a Symfony Console command:

"scripts": { "yamllint": "@php bin/console lint:yaml app" }

Don't forget to document the custom scripts

You can use the scripts-descriptions section to document what custom scripts do:

"scripts-descriptions": { "phpcs": "Checks that the application code conforms to coding standard", "test": "Launches the preconfigured PHPUnit" }

Configure timeout for long-running scripts

If you have some long-running scripts, you should configure the process timeout. It defaults to 300 which means that Composer will terminate the script after 300s. You can either set a specific time limit in seconds, or 0 for unlimited.

Timeout can be configured in the ENV variable COMPOSER_PROCESS_TIMEOUT :

export COMPOSER_PROCESS_TIMEOUT=600

Or by adding --timeout=0 argument when running the script:

composer phpunit --timeout=3600

Or in config section of composer.json :

"config": { "process-timeout": 0 }

Tips for the Scripts:

You can use composer run-script --list to list custom scripts. Be careful not to create a script with a name conflicting with the existing Composer command. Composer throws a warning on every run when such a script is present in composer.json . You don't have to update composer.lock when adding or changing the scripts, because they are not included in composer.lock at all. You can even call PHP callbacks from scripts (Static methods in classes autoloadable by Composer). But I don't recommend using them for build scripts because potential migration to other build system would be hard.

When should I switch to Phing?

Composer Scripts are great for simple build scripts. But it is important to recognize the moment when the build script is so complex, that a dedicated build tool would do better.

As a rule of thumb, you shouldn't do any files / directories manipulation in Composer scripts (as it would be hard to do it Linux/Windows compatible) and switch to Phing instead.

Conclusion

Composer scripts are a lightweight tool to create build scripts. However, it is important to know when to switch to a dedicated tool such as Phing.

Do you like them?