README

Note I have now switched the semver versioning for my Laravel packages to "match" the latest supported Laravel version.

Laravel Helper Loader is a package that will load multiple, custom "helper" modules from a given path. This allows you to separate your custom helper functions into different php files. You can also cache multiple helper files into one, quick to load file, a la Laravel "config".

Installation

Add bhuvidya/laravel-helper-loader to your app:

$ composer require "bhuvidya/laravel-helper-loader"

If you're using Laravel 5.5 or above, you don't have to edit app/config/app.php.

Otherwise, edit app/config/app.php and add the service provider:

'providers' => [
    'BhuVidya\HelperLoader\HelperLoaderServiceProvider',
]

Configuration

The configuration file specifies the path to your helper files (default APP_ROOT/helpers), and the cache file (default APP_ROOT/bootstrap/cache/helpers.php).

You can manage and customise the configuration by installing the default config file:

$ php artisan vendor:publish --provider='BhuVidya\HelperLoader\HelperLoaderServiceProvider' --tag=config

The following config file will be published in config/helper_loader.php:

return [

    /*
    |--------------------------------------------------------------------------
    | Path to helpers. Can either be relative to base path, or use an
    | absolute path.
    |--------------------------------------------------------------------------
    */

    'path' => env('HELPER_LOADER_PATH', 'helpers'),

    /*
    |--------------------------------------------------------------------------
    | Path to cache file. Can either be relative to bootstrap cache path, or use an
    | absolute path.
    |--------------------------------------------------------------------------
    */

    'cache' => env('HELPER_LOADER_CACHE_FILE', 'helpers.php'),

];

Alternately, you can set the Helper Loader config vars by using your .env file. As you can see above, the env variables used are:

HELPER_LOADER_PATH
HELPER_LOADER_CACHE_FILE

Usage

So once your helpers path is set, you can freely add and edit helper modules to that path, and they will be loaded automatically for you. For a production environment, you may want to cache your helper files. You can do this in a way similar to caching your config files:

$ php artisan helper-loader:cache

If the helper loader cache file exists, it is always loaded, even if you have updated or added to your helper modules. You can clear the cache file as follows:

$ php artisan helper-loader:clear

Credits

License

MIT

bhuvidya / laravel-helper-loader

Maintainers

Details