Guidelines for packaging PHP addon modules

Different kinds of packages

There are basically 4 different kinds of php modules, which are packaged for Fedora:

PECL (PHP Extention Community Library), which are PHP modules usually written in C, which are dynamically loaded by the PHP interpreter on startup.
PEAR (PHP Extension and Application Repository), which are reusable components written in PHP, usually classes, which can be used in your own PHP applications and scripts by using e.g. the include() directive.
CHANNEL : a package which register a channel. A channel is a repository which provides php extensions
Other package providing php extension not handled by pear/pecl mechanisms

While upstream used the same package and distribution format for PECL and PEAR, creating RPMs has to take some differences into account.

3 channels are defined on installation of php-pear

pear.php.net (alias pear) : the default channel for PHP Extension and Application Repository
pecl.php.net (alias pecl) : the default channel for PHP Extension Community Library
__uri : Pseudo-channel for static packages

Other channels must be configured at RPM build time and at at RPM installation time.

Naming scheme

PECL packages from standard pecl channel should be named php-pecl-PECLPackageName-%{version}-%{release}.%{arch}.rpm.
PEAR packages from standard pear channel should be named php-pear-PEARPackageName-%{version}-%{release}.noarch.rpm.
CHANNEL packages should be named php-channel-ChannelAlias-%{version}-%{release}.noarch.rpm
Packages from another channel should be named php-ChannelAlias-PackageName-%{version}-%{release}.noarch.rpm.
Other packages should be named php-PackageName-%{version}-%{release}.%{arch}.rpm; %{arch} can be "noarch" where appropriate.

Please make sure that the PEAR package is correctly being built for noarch.

The PECLPackageName and the PEARPackageName should be consistent with the upstream naming scheme. The Crack PHP Extension would thus be named php-pecl-crack with the resulting packages being php-pecl-crack-0.4-1.i386.rpm and php-pecl-crack-0.4-1.src.rpm.

Note that web applications that happen to be written in PHP do not belong under the php-* namespace.

File Placement

Non-PEAR PHP software which provides shared libraries should put its PHP source files for such shared libraries in a subfolder of /usr/share/php, named according to the name of the software. For example, a library called "Whizz_Bang" (with a RPM called php-something-Whizz-Bang) would put the PHP source files for its shared libraries in /usr/share/php/Whizz_Bang.

PEAR documentation provided by upstream are installed in %{pear_docdir}, should stay there, and must be marked as %doc.

Requires and Provides

PEAR Packages from the standard channel/repository

A PEAR package MUST have:

BuildRequires: php-pear(PEAR)
Requires: php-pear(PEAR)
Requires(post): %{__pear}
Requires(postun): %{__pear}
Provides:     php-pear(foo) = %{version}

Packages for CHANNEL (repository) configuration

A CHANNEL package 'MUST have :

Requires: php-pear(PEAR)
Requires(post): %{__pear}
Requires(postun): %{__pear}
Provides: php-channel(channelname)

PEAR Packages from a non standard channel/repository

A PEAR package MUST have:

BuildRequires: php-channel(channelname)
BuildRequires: php-pear(PEAR)
Requires: php-pear(PEAR)
Requires(post): %{__pear}
Requires(postun): %{__pear}
Requires: php-channel(channelname)
Provides:     php-pear(channelname/foo) = %{version}

C extensions (PECL and others)

To be certain that a binary extension will run correctly with a particular version of PHP, it is necessary to check that a particular package has both API and ABIs matching the installed version of PHP. The mechanism for doing this has evolved over time and is as follows:

For Fedora (all current versions):

BuildRequires: php-devel
Requires:      php(zend-abi) = %{php_zend_api}
Requires:      php(api) = %{php_core_api}

Packaging note
Details on what to do for EPEL branches EL-4 and EL-5 can be found here: Packaging:EPEL#PHP_ABI_Check_Handling

PECL Packages

PECL extension MUST have ABI check (see previous)

A PECL package MUST also have:

BuildRequires: php-pear
Requires(post): %{__pecl}
Requires(postun): %{__pecl}

Provides:     php-pecl(foo) = %{version}

Other Packages

PHP addons which are neither PEAR nor PECL should require what makes sense (either a base PHP version or a php-api, php(zend-abi) as necessary).

Apache requirement

A PHP library must not have an explicit Requires on php or httpd, since these libraries could be used with any webserver or any SAPI (php-cli, php-cgi, php-fpm, ...).

Only a PHP web application, which provides a specific Apache httpd configuration, should have a Requires on httpd and mod_php.

Extensions Requires

PHP extensions must have a Requires on all of the dependent extensions (php-date, php-gd, php-mbstring, ...). These extensions are virtual Provides of the php sub-packages.

Requiring a Minimum PHP version

If you need to specify a minimum PHP version, the recommended method is to add a Requires: php(language) >= $VERSION (where $VERSION is the minimum PHP version). This works for all released versions of Fedora and RHEL/EPEL-6, but does NOT work for RHEL/EPEL-5. For RHEL/EPEL-5 packages, you will need to use Requires: php-common >= $VERSION.

Macros and scriptlets

PHP ZTS extension

When the Apache HTTPD is run in worker mode (instead of prefork mode), the ZTS (Zend Thread Safe) version of PHP is used.

If an extension maintainer wants to provide a ZTS version of this extension, the maintainer must ensure that:

the extension is thread safe
the libraries used by the extension are thread safe

The php-devel package in fedora >= 17 (5.4.0) provides the necessary files to build ZTS modules and provides several new helper macros:

For standard (NTS) extensions

%{__php}          %{_bindir}/php
%{php_extdir}     %{_libdir}/php/modules
%{php_inidir}     %{_sysconfdir}/php.d
%{php_incldir     %{_includedir}/php

For ZTS extensions

%{__ztsphp}       %{_bindir}/zts-php
%{php_ztsextdir}  %{_libdir}/php-zts/modules
%{php_ztsinidir}  %{_sysconfdir}/php-zts.d
%{php_ztsincldir  %{_includedir}/php-zts/php

php-devel provides the executables needed during the build of a ZTS extension, which are:

zts-phpize
zts-php-config
zts-php (which is only useful to run the test suite during build)

Packages for CHANNEL (repository) configuration

Here are some recommended scriptlets for properly registering and unregistering the channel:

%post
if [ $1 -eq  1 ] ; then
   %{__pear} channel-add %{pear_xmldir}/%{name}.xml > /dev/null || :
else
   %{__pear} channel-update %{pear_xmldir}/%{name}.xml > /dev/null ||:
fi

%postun
if [ $1 -eq 0 ] ; then
   %{__pear} channel-delete %{channelname} > /dev/null || :
fi

PEAR Modules

The php-pear package provides several useful macros:

%{pear_phpdir}
%{pear_docdir} (This evaluates to %{_docdir}/pear.)
%{pear_testdir}
%{pear_datadir}
%{pear_xmldir}
%{pear_metadir} (This evaluates to %{pear_phpdir}, except in Fedora 19+, where it evaluates to /var/lib/pear.)

These definitions for the .spec should be of interest:

BuildRequires:    php-pear >= 1:1.4.9-1.2
Provides:         php-pear(PackageName) = %{version}
Requires:         php-common >= 4.3, php-pear(PEAR)
Requires(post):   %{_bindir}/pear
Requires(postun): %{_bindir}/pear

Be sure you delete any PEAR metadata files at the end of %install:

rm -rf %{buildroot}/%{pear_metadir}/.??*

Packaging note
The %{pear_metadir} macro is not present on EPEL, please see: EPEL:Packaging#PHP_PEAR_Macros

Here are some recommended scriptlets for properly registering the module:

%post
%{_bindir}/pear install --nodeps --soft --force --register-only %{pear_xmldir}/%{name}.xml >/dev/null ||:

And here are some recommended scriptlets for properly unregistering the module, from the standard channel:

%postun
if [ "$1" -eq "0" ] ; then
%{_bindir}/pear uninstall --nodeps --ignore-errors --register-only Foo_Bar >/dev/null ||:
fi

From a non standard channel (pear command requires the channel):

%postun
if [ "$1" -eq "0" ] ; then
%{_bindir}/pear uninstall --nodeps --ignore-errors --register-only Foo_channel/Foo_Bar >/dev/null ||:
fi

PECL Modules

The php-pear package in Fedora Core 5 and above (version 1:1.4.9-1.2) provides several useful macros:

%{pecl_phpdir}
%{pecl_docdir}
%{pecl_testdir}
%{pecl_datadir}
%{pecl_xmldir}

You may need to define a few additional macros to extract some information from PHP. It is recommended that you use the following:

%global php_apiver  %((echo 0; php -i 2>/dev/null | sed -n 's/^PHP API => //p') | tail -1)
%{!?__pecl:     %{expand: %%global __pecl     %{_bindir}/pecl}}
%{!?php_extdir: %{expand: %%global php_extdir %(php-config --extension-dir)}}

And here are some recommended scriptlets for properly registering and unregistering the module:

%post
%{pecl_install} %{pecl_xmldir}/%{name}.xml >/dev/null || :


%postun
if [ $1 -eq 0 ]  ; then
%{pecl_uninstall} %{pecl_name} >/dev/null || :
fi

Packaging note
These scriptlets are not correct on EPEL, please see: Packaging:EPEL#PHP_PECL_Module_Scriptlets

Other Modules

If your module includes compiled code, you may need to define some macros to extract some information from PHP. It is recommended that you user the following:

%global php_apiver  %((echo 0; php -i 2>/dev/null | sed -n 's/^PHP API => //p') | tail -1)
%global php_extdir  %(php-config --extension-dir 2>/dev/null || echo "undefined")
%global php_version %(php-config --version 2>/dev/null || echo 0)

Additional Hints for Packagers

PEAR & PECL Packages

The source archive contains a package.xml outside any directory, so you have to use use

%setup -q -c

in your %prep section to avoid writing files to the build root.

PEAR Packages

To create your initial specfile, you can use the default template provided by the rpmdevtools package:

rpmdev-newspec -t php-pear php-pear-Foo

Or you can generate one; make sure you have the php-pear-PEAR-Command-Packaging package installed:

pear make-rpm-spec Foo.tgz

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Packaging:PHP

Contents

Guidelines for packaging PHP addon modules

Different kinds of packages

Naming scheme

File Placement

Requires and Provides

PEAR Packages from the standard channel/repository

Packages for CHANNEL (repository) configuration

PEAR Packages from a non standard channel/repository

C extensions (PECL and others)

PECL Packages

Other Packages

Apache requirement

Extensions Requires

Requiring a Minimum PHP version

Macros and scriptlets

PHP ZTS extension

Packages for CHANNEL (repository) configuration

PEAR Modules

PECL Modules

Other Modules

Additional Hints for Packagers

PEAR & PECL Packages

PEAR Packages