Installation #

Leaf 3 is built by design to be incrementally adoptable. This means that it can be integrated into a project multiple ways depending on the requirements.

There are four primary ways of adding Leaf PHP to a project:

1. Use the Leaf CLI to scaffold a project [RECOMMENDED].
2. Download leaf through composer
3. Use Leaf skeleton to quickstart your project
4. Download the leaf repo

Release Notes #

Latest version 3 release:

Detailed release notes this version available on GitHub.

Leaf CLI #

Leaf provides an official CLI for quickly creating and managing your Leaf applications. It takes just a few seconds to get up and running with your leaf app. See the Leaf CLI docs for more details.

leaf create <project-name> --v3

You can also install modules using the following syntax:

leaf install cors

You can then run your app using:

leaf serve

Composer #

You can also set up a new leaf 3 project from scratch using composer:

# latest stable (v3)
$ composer require leafs/leaf

# version 3 dev
$ composer require leafs/leaf dev-v3.x-dev

After insalling Leaf, you need to create your index.php file which will be the entry point to your application.

<?php

require __DIR__ . "/vendor/autoload.php";

$app = new Leaf\App;

$app->get("/", function () use($app) {
  $app->response()->json(["message" => "Hello World!"]);
});

$app->run();

<?php

require __DIR__ . "/vendor/autoload.php";

app()->get("/", function () {
  response()->json(["message" => "Hello World!"]);
});

app()->run();

You might want to check out URL rewriting.

GitHub #

You can also clone the leaf 3 branch.

After downloading repo, you need to create an autoloader.

Example autoloader: autoloader.php

<?php
spl_autoload_register(function ($class) {
  $file = str_replace('\\', '/', $class);

  if (!file_exists("leaf/src/$file.php")) return;

  require "leaf/src/$file.php";
});

The autoloader will allow you use leaf files without having to require or include them first. So straight up using Leaf\App will load leaf\src\App.php.

This is only required if you downloaded the repo.

Now, all you have to do is create your index.php file, install leaf's dependencies (core modules), and include your autoloader like this:

<?php

require __DIR__ . "leaf/vendor/autoload.php";
require __DIR__ . "autoloader.php";

<?php

require __DIR__ . "leaf/vendor/autoload.php";
require __DIR__ . "autoloader.php";
require __DIR__ . "leaf/src/functions.php";

Although the setup for this method is a bit more complicated, it gives you full control over leaf and how it works since you will have access to the source code. You can directly edit leaf to behave the way you want it to. If you don't need this, we recommend that you install leaf with composer above or if you want a base setup, you can follow either of the methods below.

Leaf skeleton #

Leaf skeleton is an official leaf boilerplate that packs a default setup with optional MVC configuration and setup.

leaf create <project-name> --skeleton --v3

The main installtion for skeleton is through composer.

composer create-project leafs/skeleton <project-name>