Miles Johnson

Plugin loading quirks

On a daily basis I will receive emails pertaining to my Admin plugin, Utility plugin or my Forum plugin. Most of the time the problem they are having is related to plugin loading, and the failure to bootstrap or apply routes. But loading plugins is easy! One would think so, it does look pretty straight forward, but there are some weird cases where loading just does not work as you would assume.

In my documentation, I state that plugin loading should be done after CakePlugin::loadAll(), for the reasons listed below.

Using loadAll()

By default, CakePlugin::loadAll() does not include bootstrap or routes files. Passing an array with bootstrap and routes set to true will include them, but any plugin that does not have those files will throw missing errors. A setting ignoreMissing was added in CakePHP 2.3.0 to solve this. This approach works correctly, but not for versions below 2.3.0.

CakePlugin::loadAll(array(
	array('bootstrap' => true, 'routes' => true, 'ignoreMissing' => true)
));

Calling loadAll() last

One would think that calling CakePlugin::loadAll() after other plugins would work normally, but that's wrong. When called this way, previously loaded routes will be reset. This happens because loadAll() cycles through each plugin and re-loads them (even if a plugin was already loaded), and since both bootstrap and routes are false by default (point above) in loadAll(), the values get reset. Honestly, I believe this to be a bug in CakePHP, so when I have time I will track it down. Currently, this approach does not work correctly.

CakePlugin::load('Utility', array('bootstrap' => true, 'routes' => true));
CakePlugin::load('Admin', array('bootstrap' => true, 'routes' => true));
CakePlugin::load('Forum', array('bootstrap' => true, 'routes' => true));
CakePlugin::loadAll();

Calling loadAll() first

If calling it last doesn't work correctly, then calling it first will. By calling CakePlugin::loadAll() first, all the problems listed in the point above are invalid and plugin loading works correctly. Both routes and bootstrapping successfully triggers. This approach works correctly.

CakePlugin::loadAll();
CakePlugin::load('Utility', array('bootstrap' => true, 'routes' => true));
CakePlugin::load('Admin', array('bootstrap' => true, 'routes' => true));
CakePlugin::load('Forum', array('bootstrap' => true, 'routes' => true));

Passing an array to load()

Many don't know this, but an array of plugins can be passed to CakePlugin::load(). I tried many different combinations with no failures. This approach works correctly.

CakePlugin::load(array(
	'Uploader',
	'Utility' => array('bootstrap' => true, 'routes' => true),
	'Admin' => array('bootstrap' => true, 'routes' => true),
	'Forum' => array('bootstrap' => true, 'routes' => true)
));
CakePlugin::load(
	array('Utility', 'Admin', 'Forum'),
	array('bootstrap' => true, 'routes' => true)
);

How did you debug this?

It was rather easy. In Config/bootstrap.php I would attempt different variations of plugin loading to test the outcome. In my controller I had a few debug() statements that spit out Configure and Router information to verify that loading was working.

debug(App::objects('plugin'));
debug(Configure::read());
debug(Router::$routes);