Running a SlimPHP Application in Docker Containers

Using Docker to run a simple PHP web application is one thing, but how hard is it to install and run a small framework like SlimPHP in Docker containers? Let’s try it out!

1. Installing SlimPHP with Docker and Composer

First we need to install SlimPHP into a new directory. Their documented installation instructions assume that you’ve got Composer installed locally, but since we’re building with Docker, we should use a container.

• First, make a new directory, navigate to it in your command line terminal.
• Next, install SlimPHP using the Composer Docker container:

docker run --rm -v $(pwd):/app composer/composer:latest require slim/slim "^3.0"

Now you should see a vendor/ directory as well as a composer.json and composer.lock file in your project’s root. SlimPHP is now installed and we can build a simple application.

2. Running a SlimPHP Application

SlimPHP is a microframework, meaning that they don’t include too much more than a router, but since we just want to try it out, that’s good enough. SlimPHP’s documentation includes a simple application, so let’s start with that.

• The application will live in an index.php file. Once you’ve created the file, add the following PHP code to it:

<?php require 'vendor/autoload.php';
// instantiate the App object
$app = new \Slim\App();
// Add route callbacks
$app->get('/', function ($request, $response, $args) {
    return $response->withStatus(200)->write('Hello World!');
});
// Run application
$app->run();

• Now we can try running the small PHP application with the official PHP/Apache container:

docker run --rm -p 8000:80 -v $(pwd):/var/www/html php:apache

• Navigate to http://localhost:8000/ and you should see the text Hello World!

As you can see, without installing PHP, Composer, or anything besides Docker we can get started building a PHP web application on SlimPHP. This makes development fast and allows you to quickly share your code with others no matter what environment they’re using.

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In this book, PHP developers will learn everything they need to know to start building their applications on Docker, including:

• Installing dependencies using Composer.
• Getting data from a third-party API.
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