Custom Namespace

By default a ContainerNamespace reads container files straight from the local filesystem. If you need to load .ctn source from somewhere else — a cache, a database, a ZIP archive, or files that need decrypting or preprocessing first — you extend ContainerNamespace and override how it reads code.

The extension point

The single method responsible for turning a file path into raw .ctn source is getCodeFromFile(). It is protected, so a subclass can override it while reusing all the parsing, importing and storage logic.

use ClanCats\Container\ContainerNamespace;

class CachedContainerNamespace extends ContainerNamespace
{
    public function __construct(private CacheInterface $cache, array $paths = [])
    {
        parent::__construct($paths);
    }

    protected function getCodeFromFile(string $containerFilePath): string
    {
        $key = 'ctn.' . md5($containerFilePath);

        if ($cached = $this->cache->get($key)) {
            return $cached;
        }

        $code = parent::getCodeFromFile($containerFilePath);
        $this->cache->set($key, $code);

        return $code;
    }
}

Everything else — parse(), getCode(), import resolution — flows through this method, so overriding it is enough to change the source of your container files without touching the parser.

Custom path resolution

The import name → path map lives in the protected $paths property and is populated by importDirectory() and importFromVendor(). To register files from a source that isn't a directory or a Composer vendor map, add your own loader that fills $paths:

class DatabaseContainerNamespace extends ContainerNamespace
{
    public function importFromDatabase(\PDO $pdo): void
    {
        $stmt = $pdo->query('SELECT import_name, file_path FROM container_files');

        foreach ($stmt->fetchAll(\PDO::FETCH_ASSOC) as $row) {
            $this->paths[$row['import_name']] = $row['file_path'];
        }
    }
}

Once $paths is populated, import statements inside your .ctn files resolve against it exactly as they would for a filesystem namespace.

TIP

For the common case of importing container files shipped by Composer packages, you don't need a custom namespace — use the built-in Composer integration instead.