* If the modifications change any documented behavior or add new features, document the changes. The documentation can be found in the docs directory. To recreate the documentation locally, follow the steps in the next paragraph "Generating Documentation". This will re-create all documentation files in the docs directory in your repository. You can inspect the documentation in this folder using a browser. We recently agreed that future documentation should be written in American English (AE).

* When finished, push the changes to your GitHub repository and send a pull request from your fork to the ArangoDB-PHP repository. Please make sure to select the appropriate branches there. This will most likely be **devel**.

* You must use the Apache License for your changes and have signed our [CLA](https://www.arangodb.com/documents/cla.pdf). We cannot accept pull requests from contributors that did not sign the CLA.

* Please let us know if you plan to work an a ticket. This way we can make sure we avoid redundant work

- [Using packagist/composer](#using_packagist)

* Using packagist/composer

<a name="using_packagist"></a>

When using [packagist](http://packagist.org/), the procedure is as follows:

Get the composer.phar file from [getcomposer.org](http://getcomposer.org):

curl -s http://getcomposer.org/installer | php

This will put the composer.phar file into the current directory. Next, create a new directory for your project, e.g. arangophp, and move into it:

mkdir arangophp && cd arangophp

Then, use composer's init command to define the initial dependencies for your project:

php ../composer.phar init

This will fire up composer's interactive config generator. It will ask you several questions, and the below example shows how you can answer them. Most questions have reasonable default settings and you can should use the defaults whenever you're unsure.

When asked for a package name, type ## triagens/Arango. This is the package name for the ArangoDB PHP client. When being asked for a package number (package ##), you can either use dev-master (latest version) or one of the designated tagged versions.

Welcome to the Composer config generator

This command will guide you through creating your composer.json config.

Package name (/) [jsteemann/arangophp]:

Description []: An example application using ArangoDB PHP client

Author [jsteemann]:

Define your dependencies.

Would you like to define your dependencies interactively [yes]? yes

Search for a package []: triagens/Arango

Found 3 packages matching triagens/Arango

[0] triagens/ArangoDb dev-master

[1] triagens/ArangoDb V0.1.1

[2] triagens/ArangoDb V0.0.1

Enter package ## to add, or a couple if it is not listed []: 0

Search for a package []:

{

"name": "jsteemann/arangophp",

"description": "An example application using ArangoDB PHP client",

"require": {

"triagens/arangodb": "dev-master"

},

"authors": [

{

"name": "jsteemann",

"email": "j.steemann@triagens.de"

}

]

}

Do you confirm generation [yes]? yes

Would you like the vendor directory added to your .gitignore [yes]?

The above has created a file composer.json in your current directory, which contains information about your project plus the project dependencies. The ArangoDB PHP client is the only dependency for now, and it can be installed by running the following command:

php ../composer.phar update

Updating dependencies

- Package triagens/arangodb (dev-master)

Cloning e4e9107aec3d1e0c914e40436f77fed0e5df2485

Writing lock file

Generating autoload files

Running this command has created a subdirectory vendor in the current directory. The vendor directory contains a subdirectory triagens that contains the ArangoDB PHP client library files. The vendor directory also contains a subdirectory .composer that contains auto-generated autoloader files for all dependencies you defined in your composer.json file (the file auto-generated by running the previous init command).

You need to include the generated autoloader file in your project when using the ArangoDB PHP classes. You can do so by adding the following line to any PHP file that will use them:

require 'vendor/.composer/autoload.php';

// use the following line when using packagist/composer

// use the following line when using packagist/composer