composer-patches

Simple patches plugin for Composer. Applies a patch from a local or remote file to any package required with composer.

Note that the 1.x versions of Composer Patches are supported on a best-effort basis due to the imminent release of 2.0.0. You may still be interested in using 1.x if you need Composer to cooperate with earlier PHP versions. No new features will be added to 1.x releases, but any security or bug fixes will still be accepted.

Usage

Example composer.json:

{
  "require": {
    "cweagans/composer-patches": "~1.0",
    "drupal/drupal": "~8.2"
  },
  "config": {
    "preferred-install": "source"
  },
  "extra": {
    "patches": {
      "drupal/drupal": {
        "Add startup configuration for PHP server": "https://www.drupal.org/files/issues/add_a_startup-1543858-30.patch"
      }
    }
  }
}

Using an external patch file

Instead of a patches key in your root composer.json, use a patches-file key.

{
  "require": {
    "cweagans/composer-patches": "~1.0",
    "drupal/drupal": "~8.2"
  },
  "config": {
    "preferred-install": "source"
  },
  "extra": {
    "patches-file": "local/path/to/your/composer.patches.json"
  }
}

Then your composer.patches.json should look like this:

{
  "patches": {
    "vendor/project": {
      "Patch title": "http://example.com/url/to/patch.patch"
    }
  }
}

Allowing patches to be applied from dependencies

If your project doesn't supply any patches of its own, but you still want to accept patches from dependencies, you must have the following in your composer file:

{
  "require": {
      "cweagans/composer-patches": "^1.5.0"
  },
  "extra": {
      "enable-patching": true
  }
}

If you do have a patches section in your composer file that defines your own set of patches then the enable-patching setting will be ignored and patches from dependencies will always be applied.

Ignoring patches

There may be situations in which you want to ignore a patch supplied by a dependency. For example:

• You use a different more recent version of a dependency, and now a patch isn't applying.
• You have a more up to date patch than the dependency, and want to use yours instead of theirs.
• A dependency's patch adds a feature to a project that you don't need.
• Your patches conflict with a dependency's patches.

{
  "require": {
    "cweagans/composer-patches": "~1.0",
    "drupal/drupal": "~8.2",
    "drupal/lightning": "~8.1"
  },
  "config": {
    "preferred-install": "source"
  },
  "extra": {
    "patches": {
      "drupal/drupal": {
        "Add startup configuration for PHP server": "https://www.drupal.org/files/issues/add_a_startup-1543858-30.patch"
      }
    },
    "patches-ignore": {
      "drupal/lightning": {
        "drupal/panelizer": {
          "This patch has known conflicts with our Quick Edit integration": "https://www.drupal.org/files/issues/2664682-49.patch"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Allowing to force the patch level (-pX)

Some situations require to force the patchLevel used to apply patches on a particular package. Its useful for packages like drupal/core which packages only a subdir of the original upstream project on which patches are based.

{
  "extra": {
    "patchLevel": {
      "drupal/core": "-p2"
    }
  }
}

Using patches from HTTP URLs

Composer blocks you from downloading anything from HTTP URLs, you can disable this for your project by adding a secure-http setting in the config section of your composer.json. Note that the config section should be under the root of your composer.json.

{
  "config": {
    "secure-http": false
  }
}

However, it's always advised to setup HTTPS to prevent MITM code injection.

Patches containing modifications to composer.json files

Because patching occurs after Composer calculates dependencies and installs packages, changes to an underlying dependency's composer.json file introduced in a patch will have no effect on installed packages.

If you need to modify a dependency's composer.json or its underlying dependencies, you cannot use this plugin. Instead, you must do one of the following:

• Work to get the underlying issue resolved in the upstream package.
• Fork the package and specify your fork as the package repository in your root composer.json
• Specify compatible package version requirements in your root composer.json

Error handling

If a patch cannot be applied (hunk failed, different line endings, etc.) a message will be shown and the patch will be skipped.

To enforce throwing an error and stopping package installation/update immediately, you have two available options:

1. Add "composer-exit-on-patch-failure": true option to the extra section of your composer.json file.
2. Export COMPOSER_EXIT_ON_PATCH_FAILURE=1

By default, failed patches are skipped.

Difference between this and netresearch/composer-patches-plugin

• This plugin is much more simple to use and maintain
• This plugin doesn't require you to specify which package version you're patching
• This plugin is easy to use with Drupal modules (which don't use semantic versioning).
• This plugin will gather patches from all dependencies and apply them as if they were in the root composer.json

Credits

A ton of this code is adapted or taken straight from https://github.com/jpstacey/composer-patcher, which is abandoned in favor of https://github.com/netresearch/composer-patches-plugin, which is (IMHO) overly complex and difficult to use.