Webpack-php-mock

Installation

Webpack-php-mock has been published as a npm module, so that one can easily install it using the npm install command.

Switch to you project root directory which should already have a package.json file in it, and run command as the following:

npm install webpack-php-mock --save-dev

Now you get webpack-php-mock installed on your project, declaring it as one of the "devDependencies".

The next important thing is to add a configuration file to the root of the project named wpm.config.js, where one can add custom settings.

Usage

You can quickly launch the mock stuff using the demo example.

Switch to the root of the example. And run the command

npm install

And start it like this.

gulp

After that just visit http://localhost:3000/.

The configuration descriptions are as below.

---

Configuration

The first thing to be anounced is that there should be a webpack.config.js file or the similiar to support the compiling of your project using webpack. This is because webpack-php-mock is just based on webpack and provides no additional compiling stuff.

All the configuration usage could be found in the wpm.config.js demo.

The Root Directory

Configuration Name: root

To help to locate all the static file, you should explicitly give the "webroot" directory. The root directory only contains static files such as JavaScript files, image files, font files and so on. The root directory will be cleaned every once you run gulp or gulp clean.

root: path.join(mockroot, 'webroot')

Webpack Output Path

Configuration Name: outputPath

This will override the the output.path configuration of the webpack.config.js. The purpose is put the output files to a specific place that will avoid unnecessary coverage of the webpack compiling output.

outputPath: path.join(mockroot, 'webroot', 'app')

Jsons

Configuration Name: jsons.path

Specify the local path where all the json datas are located. This is mainly for the relative path of the type local rewrite rule.

jsons: {
    path: path.join(mockroot, 'jsons')
}

PHP Connect

Configuration Name: phpconnect

This is a configuration for the plugin gulp-connect-php, click to check the detail

phpconnect: {
    host: 'localhost',
    port: 8000,
    root: path.join(mockroot, 'php')
}

Server

Configuration Name: server.port

Just specify the port that the mock server will use.

server: {
    port: 3000
}

Rewrite Path

Configuration Name: rewrite.paths

This is the main part of the configuration, which can achieve proxy, interface mock, php request redirect.

The paths is an array which contain many individual rewrite rules. Each rule is one of the type: local, proxy, php. And cookie can also be injected into each rule to help the authorization.

Here is an example:

rewrite: {
    paths: [
        {
            type: 'local',
            from: '/sample',
            to: '/sample.json',
            mime: 'application/json'
        },
        {
            type: 'php',
            from: '/sample.php',
            to: 'http://localhost:8000/',
            mime: 'text/html'
        },
        {
            type: 'proxy',
            from: '/app/*',
            to: 'http://host.com/',
            method: 'all',
            mime: 'application/json',
            cookie: {
                file: 'fake.cookie',
                opt: {
                    maxAge: 10000
                }
            }
        }
    ]
}

Below is the description of the type value:

Type: local

This is used to mock request interface, you can spcify a local json file in "to", and when you request "from", the content of the "to" will be returned. If the mime is "application/json" it will act like a real interface. The path value of the "to" is relative to the jsons.path configuration.

Type: proxy

This is used for proxy, redirect you "from" request to "to". It can be used to pull data from a real server. Also if you specify the cookie, the proxy will have the authorization info to request backend server.

Type: php

This is used for php interpretation. Request based on php can use this type.

Deploy to Reconstruct

Configuration Name: deploy.default

This is used to reconstruct the output files to be online-like. We think that developing and testing you project in an online-like structure will help to reduce error-prone problems that will jump out once you push your codes online.

So just test you project as online-like.

Tips: The deploy configuration is not so completed, it is only capable of simple reconstruct such as move the template file to some other place. When you move the static files, you browser may complain that it can't find the static files for the link path just fails.

Below is what it looks like:

deploy: {
    default: [
        {
            // move the webroot/app/index.html to webroot
            from: path.join(mockroot, 'webroot', 'app', 'index.html'),
            to: path.join(mockroot, 'webroot')
        },
        {
            // move the webroot/app/index.tpl to webroot/templates
            from: path.join(mockroot, 'webroot', 'app', 'index.tpl'),
            to: path.join(mockroot, 'webroot', 'templates')
        }
    ]
}

You can find more details in wpm.config.js of the example demonstration.

---

Gulp and Run

Once you have your wpm.config.js file, and you also have a project based on webpack, then all you need to do is just including the gulp tasks provided into your gulpfile.js and the run gulp.

The gulpfile.js is as follows:

var gulp = require('gulp');
var mock = require('webpack-php-mock');

gulp.tasks = mock.tasks;

Here is all the gulp tasks provided:

• clean: which clean the root directory
• compile: which compile the project into root directory
• phpconnect: which start the gulp-connect-php
• proxy: which start the entry server
• build: which run the clean, compile and deploy in sequence
• server: which run the proxy, phpconnect in sequence
• default: which run the server, build in sequence

For you convenience, after getting your project ready as described above, just run

gulp

Then the webpack-php-mock is running. All gulp tasks can also be runned separately.

===

Why webpack-php-mock

Recently our team launched a new project based on webpack, react and so on. As we continued to proceed our jobs, some problems came out:

• Our backend project was based on PHP, and the frontend partial template was the Smarty which is a fast meanwhile popular backend template engine.
• When had compiled the react files, the output of the compiling was just not satisfied the files structure of the backend project online.
• We also needed mock the interface before its existance.
• Some existing interface was ready on the remote server, a proxy server will speed up the developing in the local development environment.

And there are many many reasons, I will not list them all here. So what webpack-php-mock can do:

• Mock The interface with fake local data.
• Support the PHP interpretation.
• Support template engine based on PHP.
• Reconstruct the files structure of you project as they are online.
• Can be used as a proxy server for redirecting requests to the real backend server. That is an enhancement of the interface mocking.
• And so on.

Additionally webpack-dev-server are also an another fantastic tool to do proxy things, but without PHP interpretation, project reconstruction and so on.

Dependencies

Gulp

Webpack-php-mock is base on gulp. That is the entry of webpack-php-mock is actually gulp tasks. So just install gulp first. Here is gulp getting-started.

PHP

To interpret PHP files with webpack-php-mock, you should have PHP installed in your operating system first. The PHP version must be at least 5.4. Webpack-php-mock will automaticly launch the PHP application on you computer.

Other

All the dependencies are listed in the package.json file. Just check them out if you are interested.

License

MIT (http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php)