PHP Objects, Patterns and Practice (3rd edition)

CHAPTER 15 ■ AN INTRODUCTION TO PEAR AND PYRUS

This example would fail with an error. The PEAR installer requires a number of elements to work
with. To start with, we must provide overview information:

These new elements should be pretty self-explanatory. The name element defines the handle by
which the user will refer to the package. The summary element contains a one-line overview of the
package, and description provides a little more detail. All these elements are compulsory with the
exception of channel. If you are not intending to add your package to a channel you can use the uri
element instead of channel, and in the same part of the file.. This should contain a URI that points to
your package file:

The file name should not include an extension, even though the package file itself will likely end
with a .tgz extension.
Next, you should provide information about the team behind your package. You should include at
least one lead element:

After this, you can define other projects participants in a similar way. Instead of lead, though, you
can use developer, contributor, or helper elements. These are designations recognized by the PEAR
community, but they should adequately cover most non-PEAR projects too. The user element refers to
the contributor’s user name with PEAR. Most teams use similar handles to allow users to log in to
Subversion, a development server, or both.
Before you get to the files in your project, there are a few more details you must provide: