What's the correct method for using Traits and Namespaces for CakePHP 2?

Question

I'm using CakePHP 2.4.5 and PHP 5.5, and would like to use a trait.

I have a trait in Utility/VariablesTrait.php called VariablesTrait.

To take advantage of namespaces, I've given it a namespace of App\Utility\VariablesTrait, since Utility\VariablesTrait seems a bit too global, and the former would work better with CakePHP 3.

In my class that I want to use it in, I have the use App\Utility\VariablesTrait; statement in the class. For backup, I also have a App::uses('VariablesTrait', 'Utility'); statement at the top of the file. I'm not sure if the SPL autoloader is used when looking for traits, which is why I was going for namespaces in the first place.

The small issue is that the app directory is app, and since directory structures should match namespaces (I think), I renamed it to App. However, CakeRequest::_base() hardcodes app, so determining the controller doesn't work so well.

So, I'm trying to determine if that's a CakePHP bug, or if there is a more appropriate way of using traits in CakePHP 2.

Answer 1

An easy way to do this is to use CakePHP build to add your package folder, then just refer to it by the name you chose so for example:

Add this to bootstrap.php:

/**
 * Add New Package Locations
 */
App::build(['Controller/Trait' => [APP . 'Controller' . DS . 'Trait' . DS]], App::REGISTER);

Then just use this to pull in your traits:

App::uses('TestTrait', 'Controller/Trait');

You can also add multiple package folders at a time so you can apparently do something like this:

/**
 * Add New Package Locations
 */
App::build(['All/Trait' => [
    APP . 'Controller' . DS . 'Trait' . DS,
    APP . 'Model' . DS . 'Trait' . DS,
    APP . 'Lib' . DS . 'Trait' . DS
]], App::REGISTER);

Answer 2

My understanding is that CakePHP doesn't autoload. I use the following for importing namespaced classes:

spl_autoload_register(
function ( $class )
{
    foreach ( App::path('Vendor', 'MyFile') as $base )
    {
        $path = $base . str_replace('\\', DS, $class) . '.php';
        if ( file_exists($path) )
        {
            return include $path;
        }
    }
}
);