How to extend a laravel package within laravel 5.8 application?

Question

I am new to Laravel and would appreciate any help on describing how a Laravel package residing in vendor folder can be extended and wont get affected if I update the package.

Answer 1

I'll try to create a brief guide, and we'll expand if need be.

I suggest putting all of your files inside a separate directory / namespace. You'll benefit from this should you decide to create your own composer package afterwards.

As an example I'll extend bumbummen99/shoppingcart package which forks the great gloudemans/shoppingcart, adding support for Laravel 5.8 and some minor functionality. You will of course first need to install that package:

composer require bumbummen99/shoppingcart

• Start by making a couple of folders. You can use any name for folders / classes, this is what I used, relative to the project root:

app/Repositories/ExtendedCart
app/Repositories/ExtendedCart/Facades

• Create the file

app/Repositories/ExtendedCart/ExtendedCart.php

This class will extend the package's main class:

namespace App\Repositories\ExtendedCart;

use Gloudemans\Shoppingcart\Cart;

class ExtendedCart extends Cart
{
    public function myMethod(){
        return 'myMethod';
    }
}

• Then make your Service Provider. Create the file:

app/Repositories/ExtendedCart/ExtendedCartServiceProvider.php
(I'm not using artisan as generating / moving the provider will produce wrong namespace)

This is your Service Provider content, here you reference the class that extends the package's class. Note you overwrite the binding from the original package.

namespace App\Repositories\ExtendedCart;

use Gloudemans\Shoppingcart\ShoppingcartServiceProvider;

class ExtendedCartServiceProvider extends ShoppingcartServiceProvider
{
    public function register()
    {
        $this->app->bind('cart', 'App\Repositories\ExtendedCart\ExtendedCart');
    }

}

Then register your service provider in config/app.php

'providers' => [

    ...

    //Add this line to the end of providers array
    App\Repositories\ExtendedCart\ExtendedCartServiceProvider::class,
]

• Lastly create a Facade, which will instantiate the class (otherwise you will get non-static method exceptions). Create this file:

app/Repositories/ExtendedCart/Facades/ExtendedCart.php

This is the contents of the file:

namespace App\Repositories\ExtendedCart\Facades;

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Facade;

class ExtendedCart extends Facade {
    protected static function getFacadeAccessor() { return 'cart'; }
}

You're all set to use your extended methods. You can safely upgrade the original package, and you can even use the default facade:

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use Cart;

class SomeController extends Controller{

    public function someFunction(){
        Cart::instance('default')->myMethod();
        //This should return 'myMethod'

    }
}

I hope this helps, good luck!