Namespaces not working in Laravel 4?

Question

Ok I'm using Laravel 4.1... I'm trying to get my nested controllers to load.. It runs fine on my local when I was doing my previous method of just running a composer dump-autoload, but on a shared hosting provider, I can't run that command line...

Anyway, here is how my composer.json file looks:

{
    "name": "laravel/laravel",
    "description": "The Laravel Framework.",
    "keywords": ["framework", "laravel"],
    "license": "MIT",
    "require": {
        "laravel/framework": "4.1.*",
        "laravelbook/ardent": "2.4.*",
        "loic-sharma/profiler": "1.1.*",
        "intervention/image": "dev-master",
        "mews/purifier": "dev-master"
    },
    "autoload": {
        "classmap": [
            "app/commands",
            "app/controllers",
            "app/controllers/dash",
            "app/controllers/dash/product",
            "app/models",
            "app/models/Product",
            "app/database/migrations",
            "app/database/seeds",
            "app/tests/TestCase.php"
        ],
        "psr-0": {
            "App\\Controllers": "app/controllers",
            "App\\Controllers\\Dash": "app/controllers/dash",
            "App\\Controllers\\Dash\\Product": "app/controllers/dash/product",
            "App\\Models": "app/models",
            "App\\Models\\Product": "app/models/Product"
        }
    },
    "scripts": {
        "post-install-cmd": [
            "php artisan optimize"
        ],
        "post-update-cmd": [
            "php artisan clear-compiled",
            "php artisan optimize"
        ],
        "post-create-project-cmd": [
            "php artisan key:generate"
        ]
    },
    "config": {
        "preferred-install": "dist"
    },
    "minimum-stability": "dev"
}

Then here is a nested controller (Controllers/dash/MediaController.php)

<?php

namespace App\Controllers\Dash;

class MediaController extends BaseController { }

Then in my routes, I have:

Route::group(array('prefix' => 'dash', 'before' => 'auth'), function()
{
    Route::controller('media', 'App\Controllers\Dash\MediaController');
});

But it's still giving me this error:

Class 'App\Controllers\Dash\MediaController' not found

Answer 1

Unless you are using PSR-4 (or even PSR-0), you must execute

composer dump-autoload 

Everytime you create new classes in your folders. So composer add those classes to the vendor/composer/autoload_classmap.php file.

Looking at you PSR-0 autoloading structure, we can see that your controllers are set to:

"App\\Controllers": "app/controllers",

So now composer autoloading system will try to find your App\Controllers\Dash\MediaController class in (something like) this folder:

/var/www/webapp/app/controllers/App/Controllers/Dash/MediaController.php

This is tough, I know, but PSR-4 is easier to understand, since

"App\\Controllers\\": "app/controllers",

Means that your controller file will be found at:

/var/www/webapp/app/controllers/Dash/MediaController.php