I'm developing on (yet another) PHP project and I'm trying to create a nice "Donate" section in my README.md. I would like to mention sub-projects and their donate link in this README. Something really super-basic, but semi-automated.

I noticed that I can run this in Composer:

composer fund

But it generates a list of entries like this, friendly for the terminal, but unfriendly for a Markdown:

doctrine
  inflector, lexer
    .html
    
  inflector
    
  lexer
    

guzzlehttp
  uri-template
    
    
    
...

Example Desired Result

This is an example of "minimum-viable-product" of "something visible in Markdown", obtained by just prepending each line with an asterisk (*) so at least the links can be visited, and the contents are not collapsed in a single line:

• doctrine

  • inflector, lexer
    • .html
  • inflector
  • lexer

• guzzlehttp

  • uri-template

Again, not amazing but still something OK for me.

At the moment I'm using Composer 2.5.5 and i noticed that the command funds has limited formats. Documentation on-board:

$ composer fund
Description:
  Discover how to help fund the maintenance of your dependencies

Usage:
  fund [options]

Options:
  -f, --format=FORMAT            Format of the output: text or json [default: "text"]
  -h, --help                     Display help for the given command. When no command is given display help for the list command
  -q, --quiet                    Do not output any message
  -V, --version                  Display this application version
      --ansi|--no-ansi           Force (or disable --no-ansi) ANSI output
  -n, --no-interaction           Do not ask any interactive question
      --profile                  Display timing and memory usage information
      --no-plugins               Whether to disable plugins.
      --no-scripts               Skips the execution of all scripts defined in composer.json file.
  -d, --working-dir=WORKING-DIR  If specified, use the given directory as working directory.
      --no-cache                 Prevent use of the cache
  -v|vv|vvv, --verbose           Increase the verbosity of messages: 1 for normal output, 2 for more verbose output and 3 for debug

I was able to find the source code of the Fund workflow upstream:

.php

I also tried to understand how the JSON format was introduced, trying to understand if there is an hook or something:

Anyway this is the JSON format:

{
    "guzzlehttp": {
        ";: [
            "uri-template"
        ],
        ";: [
            "uri-template"
        ],
        ";: [
            "uri-template"
        ]
    },
    "doctrine": {
        ".html": [
            "inflector",
            "lexer"
        ],
        ";: [
            "inflector",
            "lexer"
        ],
        ";: [
            "inflector"
        ],
        ";: [
            "lexer"
        ]
    },
...

Question

How do you put the "composer fund" information in your README in an "acceptable way"? Do you have a "Composer fund JSON" wrapper?

Apologies if this is a super-simple problem, but I just come up with solutions that are a little "hacky" and surely Stack Overflow may have a better opinion, to give proper credits to software dependencies. Thanks for sharing!

I'm developing on (yet another) PHP project and I'm trying to create a nice "Donate" section in my README.md. I would like to mention sub-projects and their donate link in this README. Something really super-basic, but semi-automated.

I noticed that I can run this in Composer:

composer fund

But it generates a list of entries like this, friendly for the terminal, but unfriendly for a Markdown:

doctrine
  inflector, lexer
    https://www.doctrine-project.org/sponsorship.html
    https://www.patreon.com/phpdoctrine
  inflector
    https://tidelift.com/funding/github/packagist/doctrine%2Finflector
  lexer
    https://tidelift.com/funding/github/packagist/doctrine%2Flexer

guzzlehttp
  uri-template
    https://github.com/sponsors/GrahamCampbell
    https://github.com/sponsors/Nyholm
    https://tidelift.com/funding/github/packagist/guzzlehttp/uri-template
...

Example Desired Result

This is an example of "minimum-viable-product" of "something visible in Markdown", obtained by just prepending each line with an asterisk (*) so at least the links can be visited, and the contents are not collapsed in a single line:

• doctrine

  • inflector, lexer
    • https://www.doctrine-project.org/sponsorship.html https://www.patreon.com/phpdoctrine
  • inflector
    • https://tidelift.com/funding/github/packagist/doctrine%2Finflector
  • lexer
    • https://tidelift.com/funding/github/packagist/doctrine%2Flexer

• guzzlehttp

  • uri-template
    • https://github.com/sponsors/GrahamCampbell https://github.com/sponsors/Nyholm https://tidelift.com/funding/github/packagist/guzzlehttp/uri-template

Again, not amazing but still something OK for me.

At the moment I'm using Composer 2.5.5 and i noticed that the command funds has limited formats. Documentation on-board:

$ composer fund
Description:
  Discover how to help fund the maintenance of your dependencies

Usage:
  fund [options]

Options:
  -f, --format=FORMAT            Format of the output: text or json [default: "text"]
  -h, --help                     Display help for the given command. When no command is given display help for the list command
  -q, --quiet                    Do not output any message
  -V, --version                  Display this application version
      --ansi|--no-ansi           Force (or disable --no-ansi) ANSI output
  -n, --no-interaction           Do not ask any interactive question
      --profile                  Display timing and memory usage information
      --no-plugins               Whether to disable plugins.
      --no-scripts               Skips the execution of all scripts defined in composer.json file.
  -d, --working-dir=WORKING-DIR  If specified, use the given directory as working directory.
      --no-cache                 Prevent use of the cache
  -v|vv|vvv, --verbose           Increase the verbosity of messages: 1 for normal output, 2 for more verbose output and 3 for debug

I was able to find the source code of the Fund workflow upstream:

https://github.com/composer/composer/blob/main/src/Composer/Command/FundCommand.php

I also tried to understand how the JSON format was introduced, trying to understand if there is an hook or something:

https://github.com/composer/composer/commit/91b6ff27ac92a9b9e1b6c96949e9e8db50cddc78

Anyway this is the JSON format:

{
    "guzzlehttp": {
        "https://github.com/sponsors/GrahamCampbell": [
            "uri-template"
        ],
        "https://github.com/sponsors/Nyholm": [
            "uri-template"
        ],
        "https://tidelift.com/funding/github/packagist/guzzlehttp/uri-template": [
            "uri-template"
        ]
    },
    "doctrine": {
        "https://www.doctrine-project.org/sponsorship.html": [
            "inflector",
            "lexer"
        ],
        "https://www.patreon.com/phpdoctrine": [
            "inflector",
            "lexer"
        ],
        "https://tidelift.com/funding/github/packagist/doctrine%2Finflector": [
            "inflector"
        ],
        "https://tidelift.com/funding/github/packagist/doctrine%2Flexer": [
            "lexer"
        ]
    },
...

Question

How do you put the "composer fund" information in your README in an "acceptable way"? Do you have a "Composer fund JSON" wrapper?

Apologies if this is a super-simple problem, but I just come up with solutions that are a little "hacky" and surely Stack Overflow may have a better opinion, to give proper credits to software dependencies. Thanks for sharing!

• composer-php
• readme

1 Answer 1

You can generate your credits by creating this file somewhere on your computer:

generate-md-credits.php:

<?php
// Take in input the "composer fund --format=json" and generate
// a simple list of donations link in Markdown.
$stdin = file_get_contents('php://stdin', 'r');
$entries = json_decode($stdin);
foreach ($entries as $entry => $links) {
  foreach ($links as $link => $deps) {
    foreach ($deps as $dep) {
      echo "* [Donate to **$entry - $dep**]($link)\n";
    } 
  }
}

Then using this command from your command line:

composer fund --format=json | php generate-md-credits.php

(If you are not in GNU/Linux or similar environments, please add a comment to share how you do this in one command...)

It generates something like this this (rendered in Markdown):

• Donate to doctrine - inflector
• Donate to doctrine - lexer
• Donate to doctrine - inflector
• Donate to doctrine - lexer
• Donate to doctrine - inflector
• Donate to doctrine - lexer
• Donate to guzzlehttp - uri-template
• Donate to guzzlehttp - uri-template
• Donate to guzzlehttp - uri-template

So the script easily generates some Markdown, and from time to time you can easily update your README. You can also automate this a bit more, but it's still something.

I'm glad to see more solutions thought. Thanks for sharing.