[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #47256: Use composer to install and update external PHP libraries

[WordPress Trac]

#47256: Use composer to install and update external PHP libraries
--------------------------------+-----------------------------
 Reporter:  spacedmonkey        |      Owner:  (none)
     Type:  enhancement         |     Status:  new
 Priority:  normal              |  Milestone:  Awaiting Review
Component:  External Libraries  |    Version:  5.2
 Severity:  normal              |   Keywords:  needs-patch
  Focuses:  coding-standards    |
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 As of WordPress 5.2, the minimum version of PHP requires was changed to
 5.6. This opens up some options around how PHP dependencies can be
 managed. [https://getcomposer.org/ Composer] is a popular PHP dependency
 manager similar to npm or yarn for javascript. WordPress core has support
 already got [https://github.com/WordPress/wordpress-
 develop/commit/39a145e0e1e442b4bed8921029c86800a804af60#diff-
 b5d0ee8c97c7abd7e3fa29b9a27d1780 support for composer] since 4.7. Since
 5.0, many of the javascript dependancies are now loaded in using npm, php
 should have a similar build step.

 Here are a list of dependancies that could be loaded in using composer.
 - [https://github.com/JamesHeinrich/getID3 ID3]
 - [https://github.com/rmccue/Requests Requests]
 - [https://github.com/LeoColomb/pomo Pomo]
 - [https://github.com/simplepie/simplepie SimplePie]
 - [https://github.com/paragonie/sodium_compat sodium_compat]
 - [https://github.com/paragonie/random_compat random_compat]
 - [https://github.com/pear/Text_Diff Text_Diff]

 If there are modification to these library in core, these libraries should
 be forked and maintained outside of core. Composer has a custom install
 path feature, that may allow us to maintain the current file structure.
 However, it may mean creating a new vendor directory (wp_vendor) and use
 autoloading.

 Loading composer these via composer will remove a lot of the bloat of the
 code case, will make it easier for the core to manage updates in the
 future.

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Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/47256>
WordPress Trac <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/>
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