How to register a local directory as a composer package - wordpress

Question

I can't figure out how to register a local directory as a composer package. I found lots of information about registering a local folder that is either a git repository or a composer package or even a zip hosted somewhere.
However I want to register a folder on my local machine, residing in the same repository as my wordpress installation (using wordplate) that is neither a git repository nor a composer package as it doesn't contain any composer.json.
What I try at the moment is to register it like this under repositories:
{
"type": "package",
"package": {
"name": "local/contact-form-7-mailchimp-extension",
"type": "wordpress-plugin",
"version": "dev-master",
"source": {
"type": "path",
"url": "resources/plugins/contact-form-7-mailchimp-extension",
"reference": "master"
}
}
}
Add "local/contact-form-7-mailchimp-extension": "*" under "require",
add "local/contact-form-7-mailchimp-extension" in "public/plugins/{$name}" under "extras" > "installer-paths".
Running composer install however doesn't install it and gives no information at all. Don't even know if it found the url or not..
Is it even possible to install a local directory like that?

Answer 1

You can use the path repository to install packages from a different path into your project.
However I want to register a folder on my local machine, residing in the same repository as my wordpress installation (using wordplate) that is neither a git repository nor a composer package as it doesn't contain any composer.json.
For this to work, your plugin inside the folder will need a composer.json, though. This is necessary for composer to recognize this folder as a package in the first place. Fortunately, it can be as simple as this:
{
"name": "local/contact-form-7-mailchimp-extension",
"description": "My Contact Form-extension using mailchimp",
"type": "wordpress-plugin",
"version": "dev-master"
}
Assuming the plugin is in the directory resources/plugins/contact-form-7-mailchimp-extension, you can now register this path as a repository path, meaning composer will look inside this folder for a composer.json and when your wordpress-project requires the provided package it will (by default) be symlinked into vendor.
The wordpress project's composer.json then needs these entries (the options for the repository are the defaults and can be left out, this is just to show how to disable symlinking, should you need that):
{
...,
"repositories": [
{
"type": "path",
"url":"resources/plugins/contact-form-7-mailchimp-extension",
"options": {
"symlink": true
}
}
],
"require": {
"local/contact-form-7-mailchimp-extension": "dev-master",
...
}
}
When composer installs the package, it should tell you where it installed it from, i.e. you should find the path from the repository in there.