Getting started with Uniter

You can use Uniter in more than one way:

• inside NodeJS, or
• inside the Browser.

Uniter in the browser

In order to build your PHP code for the browser, you will be needing a build tool. Currently, there is a basic Browserify transform called phpify. It maps out all of your dependencies and loads them, plus the runtime, into one output bundle.

To install, we first need to have browserify installed:

npm -g install browserify

If you are on a UNXI system, such as Mac OS X or Linux, you may need to prefix the above command with sudo. But if you plan to use Browserify as a local program, you are advised to edit your package.json file:

{
    "name": "your-project",
    "version": "0.0.0",
    "scripts": {
        "browserify": "browserify"
    }
}

Now, use this command instead:

npm install --save-dev browserify

And you are good to go with a local copy of browserify. A regular install of your package won't include it - if you want, change --save-dev to -save. In most cases, you won't need this.

Now, we need to install the actual transformer that will run your PHP code through Uniter:

npm install --save-dev phpify

Done. Now all you need to do is put together a basic little Uniter project. You can find a demo here: Uniter/phpify-demo (Note: Yes, we are working on a WebPack compatible version. Don't get confused by the existence of webpack.config.js just yet.)

Uniter in NodeJS

Using Uniter in NodeJS is super straight forward:

1. Install uniter-node: npm install --save uniter-node
2. In your main JS file, like app.js, register Uniter.
3. Require any PHP file like your usual JS files, they'll just work!

To register Uniter with NodeJS, all you have to do is something like this:

require("uniter-node")();

And that's it.

var PhpModule = require("./my_php_module.php");
// Or you can ommit the extension
var PhpModule2 = require("./module2"); // ./module2.php

Within Uniter PHP, you can export values just like you would expect:

<?php
$module->exports->myString = "Hello, World!";