A couple of weeks ago I migrated a React project using redux to <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://redux-toolkit.js.org/">Redux Toolkit</a>.
Redux has always been my preferred state management tool for React (which doesn&#x27;t mean I &quot;love&quot; it), but one of its main problems is the amount of boilerplate code it requires.
Because of that I had a couple of helper functions, but there was still some things not properly handled, like proper type inference on reducers and actions (I use TypeScript).
A bit by accident (I think it was on Twitter), I found out about Redux Toolkit (RTK from now on), an official library from the redux team, which provides some opinionated helpers to reduce the amount of boilerplate, and I decided to give it a chance.
These are my impressions.
<h3>TL;DR</h3>
I first started to use it in a proof of concept, and I quickly loved it.
RTK does not &quot;replace&quot; any of the redux principles, so you can progressively adopt it, by replacing small bits of code. My plan was to use it just for some reducers, but I liked it so much that I ended up migrating the whole project in a series of consecutive pull requests.
<h3>A bit of context</h3>
Before the migration, I used to follow the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://github.com/erikras/ducks-modular-redux">ducks modular pattern</a>, which promotes putting all your action types, action creators and the reducer handling those actions on the same module.
This fits pretty well with RTK, as in most of the cases you will use <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://redux-toolkit.js.org/api/createSlice">slices</a>, and end up exporting the reducer and action creators returned by it, from the same module.
If you use <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://redux-toolkit.js.org/api/createAsyncThunk">async thunks</a>, they usually need to be used by that same slice, so it&#x27;s not a bad idea to export them also from there.
<h3>Why I love it</h3>
There are a couple of reasons for which I loved RTK right away. The main one is that they make an impressive work on making type inference in TypeScript work properly.
<ul>
<li>Slices detect the type of the initial state in order to know what is expected to be passed as <code>state</code> to reducers.</li>
<li>You can infer the type of your store from what is generated by <code>configureStore</code> or <code>combineReducers</code> functions, allowing you to also properly type the <code>dispatch</code> function.</li>
<li>Action creators are generated with the proper param types based on the reducers provided to <code>createSlice</code> or the callback provided to <code>createAsyncThunk</code>.</li>
<li><code>createSlice</code> can consume all the action creators generated by <code>createAsyncThunk</code>, and infer the proper payload for each one of them.</li>
</ul>
Thanks to this, the code is super predictable and potential bugs can be caught sooner.
<blockquote>
More details on how to use RTK with typescript https://redux-toolkit.js.org/usage/usage-with-typescript
</blockquote>
But this is not the only benefit. Other reasons that make it very nice to work with are:
<ul>
<li>It keeps the same concepts from Redux, but removing the boilerplate or your own helper functions if you have them (yes, I didn&#x27;t want to keep all those <code>switch</code> statements everywhere).</li>
<li>It is mostly transparent for the components dispatching the actions or consuming the state.</li>
<li>All the tests covering your reducers/actions/components should keep passing, as the outcome from RTK is the same as if you built everything manually.</li>
<li>It introduces a couple of extra helpers, like <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://redux-toolkit.js.org/rtk-query/overview">RTK query</a> or the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://redux-toolkit.js.org/api/createListenerMiddleware">listener middleware</a>, which is very useful to dispatch actions as a result of other actions being dispatched.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Challenges I found</h3>
Of course, adopting a new tool always comes with some challenges.
The main &quot;problem&quot; I found is that RTK is a bit opinionated, but that&#x27;s precisely how they manage to reduce boilerplate code, and it&#x27;s also &quot;advertised&quot; in their website, so not a big surprise.
I usually prefer to be in control of everything (configuration over convention), but that&#x27;s just a personal preference, and sometimes it&#x27;s ok to accept a bit of magic for the sake of simplicity.
This caused the next challenges for my particular case:
<ul>
<li>
RTK assumes your project follows a strict <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://redux.js.org/tutorials/fundamentals/part-7-standard-patterns#flux-standard-actions">Flux pattern</a>, meaning your actions always have the properties <code>type</code>, <code>payload</code> and optionally <code>meta</code> and <code>error</code>.
I was not following this pattern (my actions had the payload &quot;mixed&quot; on the first object level), so I had to adapt all my actions first, fix the tests, then migrate the reducer to RTK and make sure the tests kept passing.
<div></div>
</li>
<li>
Immutability is no longer promoted in reducers. Instead, the library requires <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://immerjs.github.io/immer/">immer</a> internally, and using proxies they automatically ensure immutability, even if you &quot;mutate&quot; the state.
This feels a bit counterintuitive at first, because redux always promoted an immutable approach, and the use of immer is not obvious.
However, they have <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://redux-toolkit.js.org/usage/immer-reducers#why-immer-is-built-in">good reasons</a> to do it, and if your reducers return a state object, you can still use the immutable approach. It&#x27;s up to you.
<div></div>
</li>
<li>
Action creators resulting of <code>createAsyncThunk</code> can only have one argument.
This is because the async thunk callback receives a second argument containing the <code>dispatch</code> and <code>getState</code> functions, as well as a couple of other goodies, enforcing this convention to avoid human errors.
<div></div>
</li>
<li>
You cannot dispatch other actions after the callback passed to <code>createAsyncThunk</code>, because it has to return the payload and RTK dispatches the action for you.
However, this is probably something you usually should not be doing, and in my case, I resolved it with the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://redux-toolkit.js.org/api/createListenerMiddleware">listener middleware</a>, listening for the second action in order to dispatch the second one.
</li>
</ul>
<h3>Conclusion</h3>
My conclusion is that RTK is definitely worth it if you use redux.
It makes code simpler, more predictable and better typed. However, it still requires knowing how redux works internally and what are its patterns, in order to understand why the library exposes the helpers it exposes and why.
For existing redux projects, you can migrate progressively, addressing the challenges bit by bit and not all at once, which simplifies its adoption.
For new projects in which you want to use redux, I would recommend starting right away with RTK.

A couple of weeks ago I migrated a React project using redux to Redux Toolkit. Redux has always been my preferred state management tool for React (which doesn't mean I "love" it), but one of its main problems is the amount of boilerplate code it requires.

Because of that I had a couple of helper…

My experience migrating to Redux Toolkit (RTK)

In 2019, GitHub published their own solution to run automated workflows called GitHub Actions, which allowed those hosting their code in GitHub, to be able to define and run their CI/CD pipelines in the same platform. When it was released, one of the main pain points to use it was that defining…

How to reduce duplication in your GitHub Actions workflows

Recently ReactJS v18 was released. I started to look into its improvements, and checked which of my projects could benefit from them.
The main react-based project I maintain at the moment of writing this article is <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://github.com/shlinkio/shlink-web-client">shlink-web-client</a>, so I naturally created a new branch and started the process.
The update was quite smooth, as most of the other dependencies I was using from the react ecosystem were already updated to support v18. All but one, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://enzymejs.github.io/enzyme/">enzyme</a>, the testing framework I was using to unit-test react components.
To be precise, I was able to continue running my tests, but some of them (those using <code>mount</code> instead of <code>shallow</code>) were still rendering components with the &quot;old&quot; React v17 approach, causing them to behave as in that version and a warning being printed in the console.
<h3>First fix attempt</h3>
The way enzyme integrates with the react version you are using is through an adapter library. The last official one supports only React v16, but someone released an <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://github.com/wojtekmaj/enzyme-adapter-react-17">unofficial adapter for v17</a> which, with close to 650k weekly downloads, quickly became the way to go.
I checked if there was one for React 18, but sadly there wasn&#x27;t.
Also, the author of the adapter for v17 posted an article indicating <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://dev.to/wojtekmaj/enzyme-is-dead-now-what-ekl">enzyme is dead</a>, he was not going to release one for v18, and publishing one for v17 was a mistake.
With those facts in mind, I started to face what was probably going to be the moment to migrate to <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://testing-library.com/docs/react-testing-library/intro">react testing library</a>.
<h3>Migration strategy</h3>
I decided to follow a migration strategy similar to the one suggested in the article above, but with a couple of modifications:
<ul>
<li>I update to React 18 anyway, as tests still pass.</li>
<li>Migrate right away all tests using <code>mount</code>, as those are the ones behaving differently.</li>
<li>New tests should be written directly with react testing library (RTL from now on).</li>
<li>When an existing test needs to be changed, consider migrating it to RTL, and do it if there&#x27;s time.</li>
<li>Introduce some PR from time to time just migrating a handful of tests.</li>
<li>Once everything is migrated, get rid of everything related with enzyme.</li>
</ul>
<h3>First contact and impressions</h3>
I was a bit sceptical with RTL, as it was focused more on integration tests, instead of unit tests, which meant I had to completely change the mindset to write tests.
It also didn&#x27;t support shallow rendering, meaning that you will end up sometimes rendering a bigger component tree when testing container-like components, potentially causing side effects that could affect your test.
On the other hand there&#x27;s more and more people stating that <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://kentcdodds.com/blog/why-i-never-use-shallow-rendering">shallow rendering is an anti-pattern</a>, and that&#x27;s probably the reason of enzyme getting &quot;discontinued&quot;.
Also, RTL has become the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://reactjs.org/docs/testing.html#tools">officially recommended framework</a> to test react components, it has become very popular, and it has even joined a wider group of testing libraries under the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://testing-library.com/"><code>@testing-library</code></a> organization.
The thing is that I started to use it, and I was quickly surprised with how it felt to work with it, and all the benefits it was bringing to my tests.
<h3>Benefits I have experienced</h3>
Once I started migrating the first tests I noticed some benefits:
<ul>
<li>Changing my mindset was actually easier than I thought. The docs are very well written, so it&#x27;s relatively easy to start using RTL.</li>
<li>My tests got simpler, and required less of those nasty global mocks that jest allows (I&#x27;m looking at you, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://jestjs.io/es-ES/docs/mock-functions#mocking-modules"><code>jest.mock</code></a>).</li>
<li>Tests were way less coupled with implementation details. I moved from testing the component props, to test what the user would see on the screen.</li>
<li>Related with previous point, I started to write my tests by looking at the screen instead of the component&#x27;s implementation.</li>
<li>Changes in source code led to fewer tests requiring to be changed.</li>
<li>A progressive migration was possible, where some tests still use enzyme and others are already using RTL.</li>
</ul>
And overall, it felt good and I have already dedicated a couple of PRs just to migrate more tests.
<h3>Challenges I faced</h3>
But of course, migrating to a new tool always comes with its own challenges, and this was not an exception. I&#x27;ll explain the main ones I have faced so far and how I tackled them:
<ul>
<li>
RTL lets you do some things in a couple of different ways, and the docs may not be super clear about what&#x27;s the recommended option.
For this I recommend reading <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://acel.me/DCMb1">this article</a> from Kent C. Dodds, RTL&#x27;s author, which explains some common mistakes when using the library.
</li>
<li>
At first, I struggled a bit with asynchronous side effects and state changes in components, which can easily end up printing a warning like <code>Warning: An update to MyComponent inside a test was not wrapped in act</code>.
The warning also explains how you are supposed to solve this by wrapping your code in <code>act()</code>, but this warning comes from React, not RTL, and what it is not telling you is that RTL already wraps all needed operations in <code>act()</code>.
What this error usually mean is that you are not waiting for something to happen. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://acel.me/jnUdT">This other article</a>, also from Kent C. Dodds, explains everything you need to know about the things that can lead to this warning, and how to solve them.
</li>
<li>
Since you start testing from the user point of view, some use cases can be challenging to test without coupling with implementation details. For example, when you have a component which dynamically renders different images or icons, I used to directly check the component properties.
For this I found the best solution was to use <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://jestjs.io/docs/snapshot-testing">jest snapshots</a>. I didn&#x27;t want to manually check which SVG was being rendered in the DOM, just that different ones were being used in every case.
<pre class="language-tsx"><code class="language-tsx">// I went from this...
test(&#x27;...&#x27;, () =&gt; {
 const wrapper = shallow(&lt;MyComp dynamicValue=&quot;foo&quot; /&gt;);
 expect(wrapper.find(FontAwesomeIcon).prop(&#x27;icon&#x27;)).toEqual(someIcon);
})

// To this
test(&#x27;...&#x27;, () =&gt; {
 const { container } = render(&lt;MyComp dynamicValue=&quot;foo&quot; /&gt;);
 expect(container.firstChild).toMatchSnapshot();
})
</code></pre>
</li>
<li>
Something very similar happens if you use some library that renders canvas. There&#x27;s no way to test that from a DOM point of view, which is what RTL does.
In my case I was using <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.chartjs.org/">Chart.js</a> to render some charts, so I used <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://github.com/hustcc/jest-canvas-mock">jest-canvas-mock</a>, which exposes a method on the canvas to see which are all the events invoked from the library.
Then I used snapshots again to verify they had the expected &quot;shape&quot;.
<pre class="language-tsx"><code class="language-tsx">// I went from this...
test(&#x27;...&#x27;, () =&gt; {
 const wrapper = shallow(&lt;MyCompWithCanvas /&gt;);
 expect(wrapper.find(Chart).prop(&#x27;data&#x27;).datasets).toEqual(...);
})

// To this
test(&#x27;...&#x27;, () =&gt; {
 const { container } = render(&lt;MyCompWithCanvas /&gt;);
 const events = container.querySelector(&#x27;canvas&#x27;)?.getContext(&#x27;2d&#x27;)?.__getEvents();

 expect(events).toBeTruthy();
 expect(events).toMatchSnapshot();
})
</code></pre>
</li>
</ul>
<h3>Conclusion</h3>
For better or worst, enzyme should no longer be considered an option. If you are starting a new project or are using it on small ones, consider migrating to RTL as soon as possible.
If you are using it in bigger projects, following the process described in this article will probably help you.
In any case, you will get surprised. React testing library is a great tool and provides many benefits over enzyme.
Its main issue is that it&#x27;s not a drop-in replacement for enzyme, so you will have to change a bit your mindset.

Recently ReactJS v18 was released. I started to look into its improvements, and checked which of my projects could benefit from them. The main react-based project I maintain at the moment of writing this article is shlink-web-client, so I naturally created a new branch and started the process.

The…

My experience migrating from enzyme to react testing library

Capturing code coverage for a test suite is a very useful way to know which parts of your source code are actually getting executed by tests. This is useful not only to know if you need to add more tests to your project (in case the coverage is too low), but also, if you want to apply technics like…

Capturing remote code coverage in API tests with PHPUnit

In the last couple of days I have been playing around with the idea of combining GitHub Actions and GitHub Pages to be able to dynamically build preview environments every time a pull request is opened against a repository hosting a client-side web app.
The idea is that you can quickly preview the changes made by some contributor, without having to clone their branch and running everything locally, something specially useful for open source projects.
In this article I will explain how to set everything up, and what are some considerations and problems you may face during the process.
<h3>Enable github pages</h3>
The first thing you need to do is enable your project to publish pages on some branch. I recommend creating a new branch for this, let&#x27;s say <code>preview-env</code>, and then enabling publishing on it.
In order to do that go to your repository and then Settings -&gt; Pages, look for the Source section, and you should see something like this:
<img src="/assets/img/preview-envs/github-pages-before-enabling.png" alt="GitHub pages before enabling"/>
Click in the dropdown and select your new branch, <code>preview-env</code>. Then click Save.
<img src="/assets/img/preview-envs/github-pages-after-enabling.png" alt="GitHub pages after enabling"/>
After saving you will see a message at the top of this section telling you what&#x27;s the URL in which the pages are published. It always follows the same pattern. If your organization is <code>my-org</code> and your repository is <code>my-repo</code>, the url will be <code>https://my-org.github.io/my-repo/</code>.
<h3>Configure the workflow</h3>
Now we need to configure a workflow that will &quot;deploy&quot; the preview environment for the branch every time a new pull request is created or updated:
Let&#x27;s imagine we have a React web app that is built with node.js. The configuration could look like this.
<pre class="language-yml"><code class="language-yml"># .github/workflows/deploy-preview.yml
name: Deploy preview

on:
 pull_request: null

jobs:
 deploy:
 runs-on: ubuntu-20.04
 continue-on-error: true
 steps:
 - name: Checkout code
 uses: actions/checkout@v2
 - name: Use node.js 14.15
 uses: actions/setup-node@v1
 with:
 node-version: 14.15
 - name: Generate slug
 id: generate_slug
 run: echo &quot;##[set-output name=slug;]$(echo ${GITHUB_HEAD_REF#refs/heads/} | sed -r &#x27;s/[~\^]+//g&#x27; | sed -r &#x27;s/[^a-zA-Z0-9]+/-/g&#x27; | sed -r &#x27;s/^-+\|-+$//g&#x27; | tr A-Z a-z)&quot;
 - name: Build
 run: npm ci &amp;&amp; npm run build
 - name: Deploy
 uses: JamesIves/github-pages-deploy-action@4.1.1
 with:
 branch: preview-env
 folder: build
 target-folder: ${{ steps.generate_slug.outputs.slug }}
 - name: Publish env
 uses: marocchino/sticky-pull-request-comment@v2
 with:
 header: Preview environment
 message: |
 ## Preview environment
 https://my-org.github.io/my-repo/${{ steps.generate_slug.outputs.slug }}/
</code></pre>
<blockquote>
If you are not familiar with GitHub Actions yet, take a look at the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://docs.github.com/en/actions">official documentation</a>.
</blockquote>
This workflow will follow the next steps:
<ul>
<li>Checkout the code from the repository.</li>
<li>Set-up node.js 14.15</li>
<li>Based on the branch name, generate a slug that we will use to have separated deployment folders for every pull request we receive. The slug is exposed to next steps as an output.</li>
<li>Build the project. This step will obviously depend on the needs of your project.</li>
<li>Using <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://github.com/JamesIves/github-pages-deploy-action">JamesIves/github-pages-deploy-action</a>, deploy the contents we previously built in the GitHub page, under a sub-folder matching the slug we generated a few steps above, and under the branch <code>preview-env</code> (remember we enabled GitHub pages for this branch).</li>
<li>Finally, using <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://github.com/marocchino/sticky-pull-request-comment">marocchino/sticky-pull-request-comment</a>, post a comment in the pull request with a link to the preview environment, so that you can just click on it and see the deployment.</li>
</ul>
The steps may change depending on your needs and how you build your project. For example, I have an extra step to update a property in the <code>package.json</code> that is then used to allow serving the app in a sub-path instead of the root of the domain.
You may also not build your site with node.js, as you could be using any of the multiple existing static site generators out there, but you get the idea.
Finally, you have probably noticed the config includes <code>continue-on-error: true</code>. This will allow the pull request to be merged even if this process fails for some reason.
<h3>Considerations when using forks</h3>
While the configuration above will work perfectly when creating pull requests inside the same repository, there are some limitations when the pull request comes from a fork (which is the usual in OSS projects).
For security reasons, the <code>GITHUB_TOKEN</code> injected in those cases doesn&#x27;t have write permissions, which will make the &quot;deploy&quot; step fail.
Also, you cannot define your own token with more permissions and inject it as a secret, as the secrets are not exposed to workflows running on forks.
However, with a couple small config changes, we can work around these limitations:
<h4>Change event</h4>
The first thing we need to do is use the <code>pull_request_target</code> event instead of the <code>pull_request</code> one.
<pre class="language-diff"><code class="language-diff">on:
- pull_request: null
+ pull_request_target: null
</code></pre>
According to the documentation, this is equivalent to the <code>pull_request</code> event, but it runs in the scope of the base repository.
Thanks to this, the <code>GITHUB_TOKEN</code> will come with write permissions, and we will have access to secrets if needed.
<h4>Checkout the fork</h4>
The second thing we are going to change is that we now need to specify the repository to checkout.
In order to do that, we need to add two inputs to the &quot;Checkout code&quot; step, like this:
<pre class="language-diff"><code class="language-diff"> steps:
 - name: Checkout code
 uses: actions/checkout@v2
+ with:
+ repository: ${{ github.event.pull_request.head.repo.full_name }}
+ ref: ${{ github.event.pull_request.head.ref }}
</code></pre>
This will ensure we checkout from the fork repository, instead of the base one, which is the default, as it&#x27;s the one where the <code>pull_request_target</code> event is scoped to.
And that&#x27;s it. With these two changes you can now deploy preview environments for pull requests coming from forks.
<blockquote>
IMPORTANT! The limitations of the <code>pull_request</code> event are there for a reason. People could potentially get access to your secrets or manipulate your code. Proceed at your own risk.
</blockquote>
<h3>Other considerations</h3>
Other than the limitations for forks, there are a few other minor things to take into consideration.
<ul>
<li>Changes in GitHub Pages do not reflect immediately. It may take up to a couple of minutes for the deployment to be available, but considering you will usually not review a PR right after it has been created, this should not be a big issue.</li>
<li>As you have seen, every time a pull request is created, the deployment will generate a new folder in your GitHub Pages branch. This may result in a lot of old folders to pile-up, so you may want to set up some way to clean them up periodically or after the pull request has been merged.</li>
<li>Due to the fact that GitHub Pages only allows static pages to be served, this process cannot be used with apps that require some kind of back-end or server-side logic.</li>
<li>If your project is already using GitHub Pages for something else (serve the project&#x27;s website or docs), that may conflict with this, preventing you from having this kind of preview envs.</li>
</ul>

In the last couple of days I have been playing around with the idea of combining GitHub Actions and GitHub Pages to be able to dynamically build preview environments every time a pull request is opened against a repository hosting a client-side web app. The idea is that you can quickly preview the…

Setting-up a preview environment for your client-side apps with GitHub Actions and GitHub Pages

About a year ago I wrote two articles discussing the best way to work with modules with sub-namespaces in Zend Framework 2.
Here you can find <a href="/2014/05/21/create-modules-with-sub-namespaces-in-zend-framework-2/">Part 1</a> and <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://alejandrocelaya.blog/2014/06/21/create-modules-with-sub-namespaces-in-zend-framework-2-part-ii/">Part 2</a>
The solution provided in those articles was functional, but it introduced some new problems to deal with. It happens that after some time working with sub-namespaced modules I have found the best way to solve those new problems, and I wanted to write this new article explaining it.
For this article I&#x27;m going to use the example namespace <code>ZasDev\AtomicReader</code>, which belongs to a real <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://github.com/zasDev/atomic-reader">application</a> I&#x27;m working on. For example, in my <code>Auth</code> module, a real fully qualified class name could be <code>ZasDev\AtomicReader\Auth\Controller\LoginController</code>.
<h3>The problems</h3>
<h4>Autoloading</h4>
By default, ZF2 uses a psr-0-like way to perform autoloading. This would force us to create a new folder per namespace level in our module, but since <code>Module</code> classes &quot;are loaded&quot; from the root of the module and the rest of the classes are loaded from the nested src folder, it would be 2 new folders per namespace instead.
With the previously mentioned namespace, the module&#x27;s folder structure would be this.
<pre><code>modules
└── ZasDev
 └── AtomicReader
 └── Auth
 ├── config
 │ └── ...
 ├── view
 │ └── ...
 ├── src
 │   └── ZasDev
 │   └── AtomicReader
 │   └── Auth
 │   ├── Controller
 │   │   └── LoginController.php
 │   ├── Form
 │ │ └── ...
 │   └── Service
 │ └── ...
 └── Module.php
</code></pre>
There are people that think that is the correct way to work, but I don&#x27;t like to have so many &quot;empty&quot; folders.
<h4>View scripts resolution</h4>
As I mentioned in previous articles, the automatic view script resolution in Zend Framework 2 when a controller&#x27;s action returns a <code>ViewModel</code> instance is to use the action&#x27;s name as the script name, the controllers&#x27; class name as the parent folder, and the first level namespace as the root folder. That is a problem when all the modules have a common top-level namespace.
In the original articles we found that the solution was to use the <code>controller_map</code> option for the <code>view_manager</code> configuration like this.
<pre class="language-php"><code class="language-php">&lt;?php
return [
 &#x27;view_manager&#x27; =&gt; [
 &#x27;controller_map&#x27; =&gt; [
 &#x27;ZasDev&#x27; =&gt; true
 ]
 ]
];
</code></pre>
That will make the view resolver to use all the controller&#x27;s namespace levels as folders, which solves the original problem but generates a similar problem as in the autoloading case, by making us to have a lot of empty folders.
The last example would produce this folder structure for view scripts.
<pre><code>modules
└── ZasDev
 └── AtomicReader
 └── Auth
 ├── config
 │ └── ...
 ├── view
 │ └── zas-dev
 │ └── atomic-reader
 │ └── auth
 │ └── login
 │ └── index.phtml
 ├── src
 │ └── ...
 └── Module.php
</code></pre>
<h3>The solutions</h3>
It turns out that the solution to both problems is really easy.
This days everybody uses <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://getcomposer.org/">composer</a> on their PHP projects. Using composer&#x27;s autoloading we can solve the first problem.
By having this module&#x27;s folder structure, which is much more usable.
<pre><code>modules
└── Auth
 ├── config
 │ └── ...
 ├── view
 │ └── ...
 └── src
    ├── Controller
     │   └── LoginController.php
    ├── Form
 │ └── ...
    ├── Service
 │ └── ...
 └── Module.php
</code></pre>
We just need to define this psr-4 autoloading strategy in our composer.json and all the classes will be properly loaded.
<pre class="language-javascript"><code class="language-javascript">// composer.json
{
 &quot;autoload&quot; : {
 &quot;psr-4&quot; : {
 &quot;ZasDev\\AtomicReader\\Auth\\&quot; : &quot;modules/Auth/src&quot;
 }
 }
}
</code></pre>
And then just refresh the autoloader by running <code>composer dumpautoload</code>.
Repeat that for each module and that&#x27;s it. Also you won&#x27;t need to define the module&#x27;s autoloading in the <code>Module</code> class.
The problem with the view scripts resolution can be fixed by changing the <code>controller_map</code> configuration a little bit. It turns out that it allows to map module namespaces to folder structures, so that not all the levels are replaced by folders in the path resolution.
With this configuration, we will get controllers in the <code>ZasDev\AtomicReader\Auth</code> namespace to be resolved to the <code>auth</code> folder.
<pre class="language-php"><code class="language-php">&lt;?php
return [
 &#x27;view_manager&#x27; =&gt; [
 &#x27;controller_map&#x27; =&gt; [
 &#x27;ZasDev\AtomicReader\Auth&#x27; =&gt; &#x27;auth&#x27;,
 // ...
 ]
 ]
];
</code></pre>
And our complete module&#x27;s folder structure will end like this.
<pre><code>modules
└── Auth
 ├── config
 │ └── ...
 ├── view
 │ └── auth
 │ └── login
 │ └── index.phtml
 └── src
    ├── Controller
     │   └── LoginController.php
    ├── Form
 │ └── ...
    ├── Service
 │ └── ...
 └── Module.php
</code></pre>
<h3>Other approaches</h3>
Of course, even though I think this is the best solution, it is not the only one.
For the templates problem, you could use a <code>template_map</code> to get view scripts resolved, but during development that&#x27;s not the best scenario, since you will be forced to update that map every time you create a new template file.
Also, you could think that the first approach with a lot of folders is the best one. Be free to use it if you are more confortable with it.
Another solution would be to &quot;pack&quot; all the namespaces in a unique namespace that includes the vendor name, the applicaton name and the module name, like <code>ZasDevAtomicReaderAuth</code>, with classes like <code>ZasDevAtomicReaderAuth\Controller\LoginController</code>, but I don&#x27;t think that&#x27;s the best solution either.
Anyway, following this rules, you will be able to use sub-namespaces in modules in a very easy way.

About a year ago I wrote two articles discussing the best way to work with modules with sub-namespaces in Zend Framework 2. Here you can find Part 1 and Part 2

The solution provided in those articles was functional, but it introduced some new problems to deal with. It happens that after some time…

Working with sub-namespaced modules in Zend Framework 2 the right way

Some weeks ago, I explained how to create <a href="/2014/05/21/create-modules-with-sub-namespaces-in-zend-framework-2/">modules with sub-namespaces</a> in a Zend Framework 2 application.
On that article I created an example module that we could add in our <code>modules</code> directory, but what if we want to distribute that module through the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://getcomposer.org/">composer</a> network to be installed as a vendor module.
There are a few considerations we have to take into account, since Zend Framework loads the Module class first in one way and then the classes of that module can be loaded by using the autoloader config provided by the Module class.
If the Module class is not in the include path, Zend Framework will try to autoload it, but modules in the vendor folder are not loaded the same way as modules in the modules folder.
By default, with no sub-namespaces, we will get a folder with the name of the vendor (acelaya, for example) and inside of it a folder for each module (zf2-acmailer, for example).
If our module does not follow this standard folder structure we will have to tell Zend Framework where the Module class is, for example in the application config file, in the module_paths part, like this.
If the Module class is not in the include path, Zend Framework will try to autoload it, but modules in the <code>vendor</code> folder are not loaded the same way as modules in the <code>modules</code> folder.
By default, with no sub-namespaces, we will get a folder with the name of the vendor (<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://packagist.org/packages/acelaya/">acelaya</a>, for example) and inside of it a folder for each module (<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://packagist.org/packages/acelaya/zf2-acmailer">zf2-acmailer</a>, for example).
If our module does not follow this standard folder structure we will have to tell Zend Framework where the Module class is, for example in the application config file, in the <code>module_paths</code> part, like this.
<pre class="language-php"><code class="language-php">&#x27;module_paths&#x27; =&gt; array(
 &#x27;./module&#x27;,
 &#x27;./vendor&#x27;,
 &#x27;HappyFactory\WebService\Module&#x27; =&gt; &#x27;./vendor/myname/happyfactory/WebService&#x27;
)
</code></pre>
But this is not the perfect solution, since we will need to update the config file for each sub-namespaced module we install, and paths can change in the future.
The best solution is to use the composer autoloading system to autoload the Module class, so we can use the folder structure we want for the module, and then the module autoloader config itself will take care to load the rest of the classes.
This way, our composer.json autoload for the module will look like this.
<pre class="language-json"><code class="language-json">{
 &quot;autoload&quot; : {
 &quot;psr-0&quot; : {
 &quot;HappyFactory\\WebService&quot; : &quot;src/&quot;
 },
 &quot;classmap&quot; : [
 &quot;./Module.php&quot;
 ]
 }
}
</code></pre>
The <code>psr-0</code> part tells composer how to load the classes in the src folder. The <code>classmap</code> part makes composer to be able to load the Module class in a specific file, so Zend Framework will be able to load it by using the composer autoloader just by including it in our modules list like this.
<pre class="language-php"><code class="language-php">&#x27;modules&#x27; =&gt; array(
 &#x27;Application&#x27;,
 &#x27;HappyFactory\WebService&#x27;,
 &#x27;AcMailer&#x27;,
),
</code></pre>
Even so, I would recommend to register the module at the same folder where the Module class is, that is to say, in our exampple, the WebService folder, instead of the HappyFactory folder.
Here is an example of a real module with subnamespaces you can install with composer <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://github.com/zasDev/common">https://github.com/zasDev/common</a>. The module is in the namespace <code>ZasDev\Commons</code>. You can install it in your project by adding <code>&quot;zasdev/commons&quot; : &quot;0.*&quot;</code> to your composer.json file.
And that&#x27;s all. Nice and easy.

Some weeks ago, I explained how to create modules with sub-namespaces in a Zend Framework 2 application. On that article I created an example module that we could add in our modules directory, but what if we want to distribute that module through the composer network to be installed as a vendor…

Create modules with sub-namespaces in Zend Framework 2. Part II

The Zend Framework 2 module system is one of its greatest features. You can create re-usable modules very easily.
Each module has its own namespace, and each one of them should provide an autoloader implementation for the application to be able to load its classes.
<h3>The basics</h3>
Usually we give a name to each module and that is the namespace we are going to use for it.
For example, the default module use to be named Application. Its Module class belongs to the Application namespace, making its fully qualified name Application\Module.
Any other class in that module, for example a Service, will belong to the same namespace too. For example Application\Service\FooService.
The same will be applicable for any other module name. Authentication, Admin, WebService… Whatever you think is valid.
The module folder usually has the same name as the module, and the Module class is located in the root of that folder. Then we have an src folder inside of it where a new directory is created for each level in the namespace. In our Application example this would be the folder structure.
<pre><code>modules
 Application
 src
 Application
 Controller
 FooController.php
 Service
 FooService.php
 ...
 Module.php
 ...
</code></pre>
The module class has a method where we define how to load the classes in the module. This could be the Application\Module class
<pre class="language-php"><code class="language-php">&lt;?php
namespace Application;

use Zend\ModuleManager\Feature\AutoloaderProviderInterface;

class Module implements AutoloaderProviderInterface
{
 public function getAutoloaderConfig()
 {
 return array(
 &#x27;Zend\Loader\StandardAutoloader&#x27; =&gt; array(
 &#x27;namespaces&#x27; =&gt; array(
 __NAMESPACE__ =&gt; __DIR__ . &#x27;/src/&#x27; . __NAMESPACE__,
 ),
 ),
 );
 }
}
</code></pre>
A Zend\Loader\StandardAutoloader is created defining any class in the same namespace as the Module namespace should be located in the src folder.
<h3>Sub-namespaces in the module</h3>
But what happens if we want to use a sub-namespace in our module, lets say because we have to use a common namespace between all of our modules with the name of our company.
Let&#x27;s assume our company is called Happy Factory inc. We might want our Application module to use the HappyFactory\Application namespace, and our WebService module to use the HappyFactory\WebService namespace.
This can be easily done by making some changes to our folder structure and autoloader definition.
The module class will be changed to look like this.
<pre class="language-php"><code class="language-php">&lt;?php
namespace HappyFactory\Application;

use Zend\ModuleManager\Feature\AutoloaderProviderInterface;

class Module implements AutoloaderProviderInterface
{
 public function getAutoloaderConfig()
 {
 return array(
 &#x27;Zend\Loader\StandardAutoloader&#x27; =&gt; array(
 &#x27;namespaces&#x27; =&gt; array(
 __NAMESPACE__ =&gt; __DIR__ . &#x27;/src/&#x27; . str_replace(&quot;\\&quot;, &quot;/&quot;, __NAMESPACE__),
 ),
 ),
 );
 }
}
</code></pre>
We just updated the namespace and make sure to load classes within that namespace.
Now our folder structure. In the basic example the module folder was placed inside the modules folder (the folder used in Zend Framework 2 by default to load modules), but in this case we are going to have another folder in between, the HappyFactory folder.
<pre><code>modules
 HappyFactory
 Application
 src
 HappyFactory
 Application
 Controller
 FooController.php
 Service
 FooService.php
 ...
 Module.php
 WebService
 src
 HappyFactory
 WebService
 Controller
 UsersController.php
 Service
 AnotherService.php
 ...
 Module.php
 ...
 ...
</code></pre>
This method is much more verbose and has more empty directories, but it works, and can be combined with regular modules too, just place them outside of the HappyFactory folder.
To load this sub-namespaced modules just add the namespace of the Module class (HappyFactory\Application, HappyFactory\WebService…) in the list of modules in the application.config.php file like this.
<pre class="language-php"><code class="language-php">...

&#x27;modules&#x27; =&gt; array(
 &#x27;ZendDeveloperTools&#x27;,
 &#x27;HappyFactory\Application&#x27;,
 &#x27;HappyFactory\WebService&#x27;,
 &#x27;AcMailer&#x27;,
 &#x27;AcAssets&#x27;,
),

...
</code></pre>
They will be properly loaded with the rest of the company modules and third-party modules.
UPDATE 2014-06-21
You can continue reading <a href="/2014/06/21/create-modules-with-sub-namespaces-in-zend-framework-2-part-ii/">the second part</a> where I&#x27;m explaining how to create, install and enable vendor modules with sub-namespaces.
UPDATE 2014-06-23
<h3>Properly resolving view template paths</h3>
Resolving template paths is not immediate in sub-namespaced modules. It was first said <a href="/2014/06/21/create-modules-with-sub-namespaces-in-zend-framework-2-part-ii/#comment-391">here</a>.
By default, if you don&#x27;t set the template to a ViewModel, it is resolved to a path which is (top level controller namespace)/(controller name)/(action name), which is not what we want here.
In a standard module, let&#x27;s say Application, with an Application\Controller\IndexController and an indexAction, the path would be application/index/index.
In a sub-namespaced module like HappyFactory\WebService with a HappyFactory\WebService\Controller\IndexController, the resolved path would be happy-factory/index/index, the same as the one resolved if the module was HappyFactory\Application\Controller\IndexController. If we want them to be happy-factory/web-service/index/index, as we could expect, we have to use the <code>controller_map</code> configuration entry, which was introduced in ZF 2.3.
<pre class="language-php"><code class="language-php">&lt;?php
return array(
 &#x27;view_manager&#x27; =&gt; array(
 &#x27;template_map&#x27; =&gt; array(),
 &#x27;controller_map&#x27; =&gt; array(
 &#x27;HappyFactory\WebService&#x27; =&gt; true,
 &#x27;HappyFactory\Application&#x27; =&gt; true,
 ),
 &#x27;template_path_stack&#x27; =&gt; array(
 __DIR__ . &#x27;/../view&#x27;,
 ),
 // ...
 ),
 // ...
)
</code></pre>
Once we have set this for each of our modules (or once for the top level namespace), the template paths would be resolved as one could expect in a sub-namespaced module.

The Zend Framework 2 module system is one of its greatest features. You can create re-usable modules very easily. Each module has its own namespace, and each one of them should provide an autoloader implementation for the application to be able to load its classes.

The basics

Usually we give a name…

Alejandro Celaya | Blog

Software development, agile methodologies and open source software.

tag Archive — "namespace"

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