The autoloader

prefix writes two files into the target directory: autoload.php and autoload-classmap.php. Your plugin has to load autoload.php before it uses any prefixed class.

Loading it

The simplest way is include_autoloader:

{
	"include_autoloader": true
}

After prefixing, this adds a line to vendor/autoload.php that loads the prefixed packages. Composer rewrites vendor/autoload.php whenever it installs or updates, so run prefix after those. The Composer scripts in getting started do that. You can also run it once with sh bin/strauss-rs.sh include-autoloader. It is safe to run again.

If you would rather load it yourself, require the file from your plugin:

require_once __DIR__ . '/vendor-prefixed/autoload.php';

Code execution order

Remember that your prefixed classes and symbols don't become available until the vendor-prefixed autoload.php file is included.

For early-execution scripts, such as an object-cache.php drop-in, an advanced-cache.php drop-in, or a firewall that boots from wp-config.php in Wordpress, you will need to ensure that the autoloader is included before attempting to use any prefixed classes or symbols.

Classmap or fallback

By default (optimize_autoloader: true) the autoloader is classmap-authoritative. Every class is listed under its new name, so loading a class never searches the disk.

Set "optimize_autoloader": false to also fall back to each package's PSR-4 folders, using the renamed namespaces, for classes that are not in the classmap, such as files added after prefix ran. Packages that use psr-0 are only loaded through the classmap, and you get a warning if there are any.

Files that always load

Packages can list files in their autoload section, usually for helper functions. The generated autoload.php requires those files for you.

Turning the autoloader off

classmap_output controls whether the two files are written at all. If you leave it out, it is false when the target directory is already part of your project's own autoload (Composer is loading it), and true otherwise.

Deleting the originals

Once the packages have been copied and prefixed, the originals in vendor/ are extra weight in a release. Set delete_vendor_packages to remove them:

{
	"delete_vendor_packages": true
}

Composer's own autoloader still lists those packages and would stop on their missing files, so after deleting, prefix:

1. removes the deleted packages from vendor/composer/installed.json, and
2. runs composer dump-autoload --no-scripts to rebuild Composer's autoloader from what is left.

If composer is not on your PATH, set STRAUSS_RS_COMPOSER to the command to run. If it cannot be run, prefix warns and tells you what to do by hand. Nothing is deleted in a --dry-run.

Because the packages are gone from installed.json, the next prefix needs them back, so run composer install first. Hooking prefix onto post-install-cmd and post-update-cmd does this for you.