php-spark/README.md

# Spark: Ignite your development workflow

Spark is a utility to help with everything from various mundane tasks to complex
database migrations and project deployment.

## Installation

Download `spark.phar` and make it executable. If desired, alias `spark=spark.phar`.
You may also want to alias `sparksh='spark repl'`.

## Using Spark

Spark expects a configuration file to either be found at `./.spark.json` or
`./.spark/spark.json` relative to the project root. The `./.spark` directory
will always be used for auxillary configuration, so the placement is fully up
to you.

On its own it doesn't do much except provide a command interface to its inside.
The magic can be found in preloading:

*spark.json*
```
{
  "preload": [ "./.spark/plugins/*", "./.spark/autoload.php" ]
}
```

The preloader will go over each of the defined rules and attempt to load them
in one of two ways, if applicable:

1. Files with a `.php`-extension will be loaded directly.
2. Directories having a `sparkplug.php` file will be loaded as plugins.

The advantages of writing your extensions as flat files:

- Simple interface
- Quickly register resources for other parts of Spark
- All code evaluated on load (can be a caveat!)

The advantage of writing your extensions as plugins:

- Object-oriented interface
- Delayed evaluation of code, ensuring dependencies are loaded
- Free autoloader! The namespace and path of the plugin class will be used to
  set up a Psr-4 autoloader for your code.

### Scripts

Using scripts is the simplest way to leverage Spark:

*spark.json*
```
{
  ...
  "scripts": {
    "hello": "./.spark/hello.php",
    "world": "echo 'World'",
    "greet": [
      "@hello",
      "@world"
    ]
  }
}
```

`.php`-files are executed in-process, and as such have access to any registered
resources, resource types and plugins.

*Note: The script system need to be improved and revamped to support environment variables and such*

### Resources

Resources are wrappers around database connections and such, providing a cleaner
interface to its innards.

Resources are generally registered by plugins.