How do you handle library dependencies during deployment using PHP?

Question

Hey guys -

this is a question on PHP mainly. I was wondering: How do you make sure that all necessary libaries are packaged with your application when you do a deployment to (production) servers?

A more concrete example: I have an app running on Zend Framework and each time I roll the application to a server the deployment process creates a fresh "installation" on that system. Therefore, I need to bundle Zend Framework together with my application and then copy the files to the right places together (it is done automatically). Currently, I am using a svn:externals definition to get the files out of Zend's SVN system during deployment, however, I don't want to rely on that SVN and I also don't want to put traffic on external SVNs with each deployment.

In the Java world, I am used to Maven which handles such stuff using central artifact repositries. I know that there is a Maven4PHP version, however, I am more looking for a PHP-based solution. Additionally, I don't believe that PEAR is a good way to go as it doesn't really fulfill my requirement of bundling the applicaiton (incl. libs) into a single deployable.

Is there some tool available already that I am not aware? Or do you have any great technique that I should know?

Thanks much for your help!

Michael

Answer 1

There's a build system called Phing which is written in PHP and based on Apache Ant.

I personally can very well live with externals.