Section: Creating a module
^ Developing a module | Installing a module » |
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A module is a directory with a precise file-system hierarchy. Modules are groupped in one or several directories called modules group, or repository of modules.
Declaring a modules group ¶
Module groups are declared in the configuration property modulesPath. It's possible to set a value of one or several relative or absolute paths separated by commas. It's also possible to use directory codes with a particular notation :
directorycode:relative/path/
The following directory codes are available :
lib | lib/ directory |
app | application directory |
This prevents from having really relative paths and is easier to maintain. For example:
modulesPath = lib:jelix-modules/,app:modules/
It declares two module groups :
- jelix-modules, subdirectory of jelix's
lib/
; - modules, subdirectory of your application path.
Modules from both directories could be activated and installed in your application.
Create a module ¶
It's as simple as creating a sub-directory of a modules group, and filling it with controllers, persistent objects ...
The createmodule
command helps you to create all this directories, and to activate and install automatically the new module:
php jelix.php --myapp createmodule mymodule
This command creates the module "mymodule" in your application's sub-directory modules
. It creates also some sub-directories as well as a default controller.
- *Important** : The name of modules are used in the name of some classes generated automatically by Jelix. So you mustn't use other characters than a-z, A-Z, 0-9 and '_'.
By default, the module is created in the modules
directory of the application. Perhaps you would like to create it into an other modules group. In this case, indicate the path of the repository after the module name. You can use the same syntax as in modulesPath
(an absolute path or a relative path with "lib:" or "app:".
This example creates a "supermodule" module into the shared-modules
directory which is itself into the lib
directory provided with jelix.
php jelix.php --myapp createmodule supermodule lib:shared-modules/
See the online help of the createmodule
command to know other options.
Setting the version and dependencies ¶
After creating the module, you should verify if the default initial version is ok for you (0.1), and set dependencies. It is very important for the installation system of Jelix.
You can indicate the version to the createmodule
command, with the -ver
option :
php jelix.php --myapp createmodule -ver 1.0 supermodule
You can also modify the version in the module.xml
file generated in the module, if needed.
You can set dependencies of the module. Dependencies are modules necessary to execute the new module. In the <dependencies>
element in the module.xml
file, add a <module>
element for each required module.
<dependencies>
<jelix minversion="1.2" maxversion="1.2.*" />
<module name="jauth" minversion="1.2" />
<module name="anOtherModule" minversion="1.0" maxversion="1.4.*" />
</dependencies>
The attributes minversion
and maxversion
are optional.
For more details about the content of module.xml, read the corresponding chapter.