vendor bins documentation

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Beau Simensen 13 years ago
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# bin and vendor/bin
## What is a bin?
Any runnable code that a Composer package would like to pass along
to a user who installs the package should be listed as a bin.
If a package contains other runnable code that is not needed by the
user (like build or compile scripts) that code need not be listed
as a bin.
## How is it defined?
It is defined by adding the `bin` key to a project's `composer.json`.
It is specified as an array of files so multiple bins can be added
for any given project.
~~~json
{
"bin": ["bin/my-script", "bin/my-other-script"]
}
~~~
## What does defining a bin in composer.json do?
It instructs Composer to install the package's bins to `vendor/bin`
for any project that **depends** on that project.
This is a convenient way to expose useful runnable code that would
otherwise be hidden deep in the `vendor/` directory.
## What happens when Composer is run on a composer.json that defines bins?
For the bins that a package defines directly, nothing happens.
## What happens when Composer is run on a composer.json that has dependencies with bins listed?
Composer looks for the bins defined in all of the dependencies. A
symlink is created from each dependency's bins to `vendor/bin`.
Say package `my-vendor/project-a` has bins setup like this:
~~~json
{
"name": "my-vendor/project-a",
"bin": ["bin/project-a-bin"]
}
~~~
Running `composer install` for this `composer.json` will not do
anything with `bin/project-a-bin`.
Say project `my-vendor/project-b` has requirements setup like this:
~~~json
{
"name": "my-vendor/project-b",
"requires": {
"my-vendor/project-a": "*"
}
}
~~~
Running `composer install` for this `composer.json` will look at
all of project-b's dependencies and install them to `vendor/bin`.
In this case, Composer will create a symlink from
`vendor/my-vendor/project-a/bin/project-a-bin` to `vendor/bin/project-a`.
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