The Module Autoloader

Zend Framework 2 ships with the default module autoloader Zend\Loader\ModuleAutoloader. It is a specialized autoloader responsible for locating and on-demand loading of, the Module classes from a variety of sources.

Module Autoloader Usage

By default, the provided Zend\ModuleManager\Listener\DefaultListenerAggregate sets up the ModuleAutoloader; as a developer, you need only provide an array of module paths, either absolute or relative to the application’s root, for the ModuleAutoloader to check when loading modules. The DefaultListenerAggregate will take care of instantiating and registering the ModuleAutoloader for you.

Note

In order for paths relative to your application directory to work, you must have the directive chdir(dirname(__DIR__)); in your public/index.php file.

Registering module paths with the DefaultListenerAggregate

The following example will search for modules in three different module_paths. Two are local directories of this application and the third is a system-wide shared directory.

// public/index.php
use Zend\ModuleManager\Listener;
use Zend\ModuleManager\ModuleManager;

chdir(dirname(__DIR__));

// Instantiate and configure the default listener aggregate
$listenerOptions = new Listener\ListenerOptions(array(
    'module_paths' => array(
        './module',
        './vendor',
        '/usr/share/zfmodules',
    )
));
$defaultListeners = new Listener\DefaultListenerAggregate($listenerOptions);

// Instantiate the module manager
$moduleManager = new ModuleManager(array(
    'Application',
    'FooModule',
    'BarModule',
));

// Attach the default listener aggregate and load the modules
$moduleManager->getEventManager()->attachAggregate($defaultListeners);
$moduleManager->loadModules();

Note

Module paths behave very similar to PHP’s include_path and are searched in the order they are defined. If you have modules with the same name in more than one registered module path, the module autoloader will return the first one it finds.

Non-Standard / Explicit Module Paths

Sometimes you may want to specify exactly where a module is instead of having Zend\Loader\ModuleAutoloader try to find it in the registered paths.

Registering a Non-Standard / Explicit Module Path

In this example, the autoloader will first check for MyModule\Module in /path/to/mymoduledir-v1.2/Module.php. If it’s not found, then it will fall back to searching any other registered module paths.

// ./public/index.php
use Zend\Loader\ModuleAutoloader;
use Zend\ModuleManager\Listener;
use Zend\ModuleManager\ModuleManager;

chdir(dirname(__DIR__));

// Instantiate and configure the default listener aggregate
$listenerOptions = new Listener\ListenerOptions(array(
    'module_paths' => array(
        './module',
        './vendor',
        '/usr/share/zfmodules',
        'MyModule' => '/path/to/mymoduledir-v1.2',
    )
));
$defaultListeners = new Listener\DefaultListenerAggregate($listenerOptions);

/**
 * Without DefaultListenerAggregate:
 *
 * $moduleAutoloader = new ModuleAutoloader(array(
 *     './module',
 *     './vendor',
 *     '/usr/share/zfmodules',
 *     'MyModule' => '/path/to/mymoduledir-v1.2',
 * ));
 * $moduleAutoloader->register();
 *
 */

// Instantiate the module manager
$moduleManager = new ModuleManager(array(
    'MyModule',
    'FooModule',
    'BarModule',
));

// Attach the default listener aggregate and load the modules
$moduleManager->getEventManager()->attachAggregate($defaultListeners);
$moduleManager->loadModules();

This same method works if you provide the path to a phar archive.

Packaging Modules with Phar

If you prefer, you may easily package your module as a phar archive. The module autoloader is able to autoload modules in the following archive formats: .phar, .phar.gz, .phar.bz2, .phar.tar, .phar.tar.gz, .phar.tar.bz2, .phar.zip, .tar, .tar.gz, .tar.bz2, and .zip.

The easiest way to package your module is to simply tar the module directory. You can then replace the MyModule/ directory with MyModule.tar, and it should still be autoloaded without any additional changes!

Note

If possible, avoid using any type of compression (bz2, gz, zip) on your phar archives, as it introduces unnecessary CPU overhead to each request.