AngularPHP provides a bridge between PHP classes and AngularJS, by automatically exposing selected classes, methods & properties as AngularJS services. Calls to these exported methods are routed to the same object on the server, with the result being passed back to the caller via a promise. Every instance of an exported class is automatically converted to and from its equivalent when passing through AngularPHP.

Install via Composer:

composer require echobot/angularphp

In your project framework of choice, set up a route which passes the current request to AngularPHP and which renders the response. To assist in this, two utility classes exist which achieve this, depending on what framework you are using.

The Echobot\AngularPHP\Endpoints\Laravel provides a Laravel-compatible endpoint, which can be easily used to create an AngularPHP endpoint on a particular route:

Echobot\AngularPHP\Endpoints\Laravel::create('/models.js')
        ->addDirectory(__DIR__ . '/models/')
        ->debug($debug);

That snippet serves up all exported classes in the models directory, from the route /models.js.

The Echobot\AngularPHP\Endpoints\PHPBuiltIn class can be used to serve requests based on the $_SERVER global variable, which includes most old frameworks and PHP's built-in command-line web server.

One can use the Echobot\AngularPHP\Endpoints\PHPBuiltIn as an example to see how the endpoint class extends the AngularPHP class in order to improve the ease of use for a given framework. Using this example, creating a new endpoint for an unsupported framework should be relatively simple.

The following example defines an AngularPHP endpoint which exposes a single class (ExampleClass) in an AngularJS module called ExampleModule:

class ExampleClass
{
    /** @Export */
    public $property;
    
    /** @Export */
    public function someMethod($arg)
    {
        return 'Here is your argument: ' . $arg;
    }
}

Echobot\AngularPHP\Endpoints\PHPBuiltIn::create()
    ->setModuleName('ExampleModule')
    ->addClass('ExampleClass')
    ->run();

Echobot\AngularPHP\Endpoints\PHPBuiltIn is an endpoint which understands the standard PHP request representation ($_SERVER). An endpoint for Laravel is also included in .

AngularPHP allows the specification of one or more properties as containing the object's unique ID by adding @Id to the property's DocComment. Any object passing through AngularPHP with a known ID will return a reference to the existing object, allowing one object with a given ID to only exist once in AngularJS. For example, if you return a user twice from the backend, the second returned value will be a reference to the first, as they share an ID.

By adding @ReadOnly to the DocComment of an exported property, the value of this property will not be passed back from the AngularJS module, and will not be updated on the specified object/class.

AngularPHP strives to fully respect inheritance, provided the classes in the inheritance chain are also exported.

Beyond limiting access to exported methods & properties, AngularPHP leaves security entirely up to you. This is a curse and a blessing - it's won't stop you doing what you want, but it's up to you to secure it.

This code is relatively untested. We've had a lot of success with it, but one should be prepared for unintended behaviour. Any bug fixes will be gratefully received.