Install package into custom directory Composer - path

Question

Hey I am trying to install a package into a custom 'admin' directory using composer.
Here is my JSON:
{
"name": "frontier/installer",
"description": "The best front end engineer package around",
"require": {
"aheinze/cockpit": "*"
},
"extra":{
"installer-paths":{
"admin": ["aheinze/cockpit"]
}
}
}
Now when I run composer install it all installs but defaults to vendor/aheinze/cockpit I cannot for the life of me figure out why.
Have done my research this should be the right code... any obvious errors?
Cheers.

Answer 1

I have implemented this composer plugin to install packages into user (custom) defined folders you can just include it in your composer.json, follow the example and tell me if you have more questions :)
https://github.com/mnsami/composer-custom-directory-installer
composer-custom-directory-installer
A composer plugin, to install differenty types of composer packages in custom directories outside the default composer default installation path which is in the vendor folder.
This is not another composer-installer library for supporting non-composer package types i.e. application .. etc. This is only to add the flexability of installing composer packages outside the vendor folder. This package only supports composer package types,
https://getcomposer.org/doc/04-schema.md#type
The type of the package. It defaults to library.
Package types are used for custom installation logic. If you have a package that needs some special logic, you can define a custom type. This could be a symfony-bundle, a wordpress-plugin or a typo3-module. These types will all be specific to certain projects, and they will need to provide an installer capable of installing packages of that type.
How to use
Include the composer plugin into your composer.json require section::
"require":{
"php": ">=5.3",
"mnsami/composer-custom-directory-installer": "1.1.*",
"monolog/monolog": "*"
}
In the extra section define the custom directory you want to the package to be installed in::
"extra":{
"installer-paths":{
"./monolog/": ["monolog/monolog"]
}
by adding the installer-paths part, you are telling composer to install the monolog package inside the monolog folder in your root directory.
As an added new feature, we have added more flexibility in defining your download directory same like the composer/installers, in other words you can use variables like {$vendor} and {$name} in your installer-path section:
"extra": {
"installer-paths": {
"./customlibs/{$vendor}/db/{$name}": ["doctrine/orm"]
}
}
the above will manage to install the doctrine/orm package in the root folder of your project, under customlibs.
Note
Composer type: project is not supported in this installer, as packages with type project only make sense to be used with application shells like symfony/framework-standard-edition, to be required by another package.

Answer 2

If you want to use the installer-paths option the package you want to be installed in a different path must require composer/installers.
In your case the aheinze/cockpit package doesn't require composer/installers as you can see in its composer.json at github.
Have a look at the composer documentation for custom paths and you see that it tells you:
Note: You cannot use this to change the path of any package. This is only applicable to packages that require composer/installers and use a custom type that it handles.
This means you are not able to change the install path of this specific package.
Anyway I don't see any necessity to install it into any different directory from the default vendor folder.

Answer 3

If you just need to put all packages under the "admin" directory, the best option is:
{
"config": {
"vendor-dir": "admin"
}
}

Answer 4

You can use the post-autoload-dump script to copy the package after install/dump-autoload:
"scripts": {
"post-autoload-dump": [
"cp -r vendor/aheinze/cockpit admin"
]
},

Answer 5

For install multiple packages in the same directory you can follow this structure
1- your path should be like this "modules/patched/{$name}"
2- and an array of any package that you want to move or install that same directory
"extra":{
"installer-paths": {
"modules/patched/{$name}": [
"drupal/signature_field",
"drupal/eck",
"drupal/auto_entitylabel"
]
}
The package or module should be in your require section as well.
"require": {
"composer/installers": "^1.0.24",
"drupal/auto_entitylabel": "2.x-dev",
"drupal/signature_field": "^1.0#RC",
"drupal/eck": "^1.0#alpha",
}