ncc/DOCUMENTATION.md

ncc Documentation

This document serves the purpose of presenting the documentation for using/developing ncc, from basic installation, basic usage, standards, and much more.

Table of contents

• ncc Documentation
  • Table of contents
  • Introduction
    • What is ncc?
    • How does ncc work?
    • What do I need to use ncc?
    • How do I get started?
• Building & installing ncc
  • Building from source
    • Requirements to build
    • Installing phpab
    • Building ncc
      • Redist
      • Tar
      • Debian
  • Building ncc for docker
  • Installing ncc
    • Command line arguments
  • Uninstalling ncc
• Conventions
  • Package Naming
  • Remote Package Syntax (RPS)
• ncc cli
  • Project Management (project)
    • Creating a new project (create)
    • Applying Templates (template)
  • Package Management (package or pkg)
    • Listing Installed Packages (list)
    • Installing Packages (install)
    • Uninstalling Packages (uninstall)
    • Uninstalling All Packages (uninstall-all)
    • Fix Broken Packages (fix-broken)
  • Credentials Management (cred)
    • Adding a credential (add)
    • Removing a credential (remove)
    • Listing credential entries (list)
  • Managing Repositories (repository or repo)
    • Adding a repository (add)
    • Removing a repository (remove)
    • Listing repositories (list)
  • Building Projects (build)
  • Execute (exec)

---

Introduction

This section serves the basic introduction of ncc, what it's used for and how you can use it in your own projects or use it to run and build other projects that are designed to be used with ncc.

What is ncc?

ncc (Acronym for Nosial Code Compiler) is a multipurpose compiler, package manager and toolkit. Allowing projects to be managed and built more easily without having to mess with all the traditional tools that comes with your language of choice. Right now ncc only supports PHP as it's written in PHP but extensions for other languages/frameworks can be built into the software in the future when the need comes for it.

ncc can make the process of building your code into a redistributable package much more efficient by treating each building block of your project as a component that is interconnected in your environment instead of the more popular route taken by package/dependency managers such as composer which attempts to copy what npm does but for PHP, which is not a bad thing, but it's not the best approach for PHP and its ecosystem.

How does ncc work?

ncc's command-line interface serves as the central hub for managing your projects and packages. This CLI empowers you to perform tasks like project creation, package installation, and project building.

When you compile your project, it generates a "ncc package" file with a ".ncc" extension. This unique file consolidates all essential project files, including the utilized components. Optionally, you have the flexibility to create a static version of your project that contains all dependencies and components, simplifying deployment and execution across different machines through a single file.

ncc harnesses these packages to install its dependencies and components globally, akin to how Composer installs packages into a project's vendor directory. However, in ncc's case, it installs them into a global directory accessible to other projects. Moreover, ncc can retrieve packages from various remote sources, including GitHub, GitLab, Gitea, and even Packagist. If ncc cannot locate a specific ncc package for a dependency or package, it will attempt to build it from source using the package's source code. Additionally, ncc features a compatibility layer for Composer packages, enabling you to install them without needing to install or use Composer itself.

You can imagine ncc as apt-get for PHP, but with a few extra features that make it more powerful and flexible.

What do I need to use ncc?

ncc is a command-line tool, so you will need to be familiar with using the command-line interface. You will also need to have PHP 8.0+ installed on your machine, along with the following PHP extensions:

• php-mbstring
• php-ctype
• php-common (covers tokenizer & posix among others)
• php-zip

These extensions are required for ncc to function properly, if you don't have these extensions installed, ncc may not work correctly or may suffer from performance issues. For instance, php-ctype & php-mbstring are required for ncc however, they will still work without them thanks to Symfony's polyfill library, but it's recommended to install the extensions for better performance.

How do I get started?

RTFM, this documentation is a good place to start, it covers everything you need to know about ncc and how to use it.

---

Building & installing ncc

ncc must be built from source before it can be installed, this is because ncc is a PHP application and PHP applications are not compiled into machine code, instead, they are compiled into a redistributable source that can be installed on the machine. This includes the auto-loader files that ncc needs to locate its components and dependencies.

Building from source

Building ncc from source is easy with very few requirements to start building. At the moment, ncc can only be debugged or tested by building a redistributable source and installing it.

Requirements to build

• php8.0+
• php-mbstring
• php-ctype
• php-common (covers tokenizer & posix among others)
• make
• phpab
• tar (optional)

For building different variants, such as building a debian package, you will need to install the required tools for that specific variant. For more information, check the Makefile for the required tools for a specific variant.

Installing phpab

phpab is also known as PHP Autoload Builder, phpab is an open-source tool used for creating autoload files, ncc needs this tool in order to generate its autoload files whenever there are any changes to its source code. This tool is only required for building and or creating a redistributable package of ncc. This component is not required to be installed to use ncc.

for some components that require static loading, ncc will automatically load it using its own autoloader

The recommended way to install phpab is by using phive, if you don't have phive installed, you can install it by running these commands in your terminal (from the official documentation)

wget -O phive.phar https://phar.io/releases/phive.phar
wget -O phive.phar.asc https://phar.io/releases/phive.phar.asc
gpg --keyserver hkps://keys.openpgp.org --recv-keys 0x9D8A98B29B2D5D79
gpg --verify phive.phar.asc phive.phar
chmod +x phive.phar
sudo mv phive.phar /usr/local/bin/phive

Once phive is installed, you can run the final command to install phpab

sudo phive install phpab --global

or you can run this command to install it locally

phive install phpab

Note: Optionally, you may want to have phab available in your $PATH, this can be done with this command. (Replace x.xx.x with your version number) this is if you installed it locally

ln -s /home/user/.phive/phars/phpab-x.xx.x.phar /usr/local/bin/phpab

Building ncc

First, navigate to the main directory of ncc's source code where the Makefile is present. If you already attempted to or had built ncc before, it's recommended to use make clean before building.

Redist

Running redist from the Makefile will generate all the required autoloader for ncc and move all the required files into one redistributable source folder under a directory called build/src

make redist

Tar

Running tar will run redist before packaging the redistributable source into a tar.gz file that can be distributed to other machines, this process is not a requirement.

make tar

Debian

Running deb will run redist before packaging the redistributable source into a debian package that can be installed on debian based machines, this process is not a requirement.

make deb

Once you have a populated build/ncc_x.x.x folder, you can simply run execute the installer file to install your build of ncc onto the running machine.

Note: you may need to run sudo before executing the installer file.

---

Building ncc for docker

ncc is also available for docker, you can build ncc for docker by running the docker-debian or docker-alpine make tasks, this will build ncc for docker and create a docker image that you can use to run ncc.

make docker-debian docker-alpine

The respective docker files are located in

• Dockerfile Debian
• Dockerfile Alpine

You may also run and test these docker builds with the docker-debian-run and docker-alpine-run make tasks.

make docker-debian-run docker-alpine-run

Contributor Note: contributions are welcomed here to expand ncc's docker support to other distros and to improve the existing docker files.

---

Installing ncc

Installing ncc is easy, you can either download the redistributable source from the releases page or you can build it from source using the instructions above.

Once you have the redistributable source, you can simply run execute the INSTALL file to install ncc onto the running machine. usually this installation process will require root privileges, so it's recommended to run the installer with sudo or as root.

Command line arguments

The installer accepts a few command line arguments that can be used to alter the installation process.

--help Displays the help message

--bypass-cli-check Bypasses the check in the installer that checks if the installer is being run from the command line, this is useful if you want to install ncc from a script.

--bypass-checksum Bypasses the checksum check in the installer, this is useful if you made modifications to the installation files and want to install a modified version of ncc. But this isn't recommended, and the proper way to do this is to modify the source code and build ncc from source, the Makefile task will automatically rebuild the checksum file for you.

Uninstalling ncc

Uninstalling ncc is easy, simply delete the directory where ncc was installed to, by default this is /etc/ncc.

It's recommended to run ncc package --uninstall-all before uninstalling ncc, this will uninstall all the packages that were installed using ncc and remove any artifacts that is installed on the system such as symlink registrations and so on.

Note:

• To delete all the data that ncc has created, you can also delete the /usr/share/ncc directory.
• Finally, remove the symlink that was created in /usr/binto the ncc entry point file.

---

Conventions

This section covers the conventions that ncc uses for its source code, documentation, and other things.

Package Naming

ncc follows a package naming convention that is inspired by Java's package naming convention. This convention is designed to ensure clarity, avoid naming conflicts, and make it easier to identify the origin of packages. Below are the key rules for naming packages in ncc:

• The package name must be in all lowercases
• The package name must be in reverse domain notation
• The package name must be separated by a dot .
• The package name must not contain any special characters other than '-' or '_'
• The package name must not contain any spaces

In PHP, similar to Java, package naming conventions follow the reversed domain notation. This means that a package name, such as "symfony/process" in Composer, is transformed into "com.symfony.process" in PHP. The components of the package name are separated by dots (".") to create a hierarchical structure.

It's essential to adhere to specific guidelines when naming packages in PHP:

• Character Limitation: Package names should consist of only hyphens ("-") or underscores ("_") as special characters. This restriction ensures compatibility with both file systems and package management tools.
• Avoiding Spaces: Spaces should be avoided in package names. The inclusion of spaces can lead to confusion and compatibility issues. Instead, use hyphens or underscores if spacing is necessary within a package name.

Remote Package Syntax (RPS)

Remote packages are packages that are hosted on a remote source, such as GitHub, GitLab, Gitea, and so on. ncc uses a special syntax for specifying remote packages, this syntax is called Remote Package Syntax or RPS for short. This syntax is simply a query to tell ncc what package to install and where to install it from. This syntax is used when installing packages from the command-line or defining dependencies in a project's package.json file.

The syntax for RPS is as follows:

<vendor>/<package-name>=<version>@<repository>

Component	Description
<vendor>	The vendor name of the package, this is usually the username or organization name on the source eg; symfony
<package>	The package name, this is the name of the package eg; console
<version>	The version of the package to install, this can be a version number or simply "latest" for the latest version
<repository>	The repository to install the package from, this has to be a name of a repository that's configured in ncc

Note: The version number can be omitted, in which case ncc will install the latest version of the package.

Here are some examples of RPS:

symfony/console=latest@packagist # installs the latest version of symfony/console from packagist
johndoe/hello_world=latest@github # installs the latest version of hello_world from github

For instances like Gitlab where organizations may have subgroups, you can specify the subgroup by using a dot (".") to separate the group name from the subgroup name.

nosial/libs.config@n64 # installs the latest version of ConfigLib from n64
nosial/libs.config=1.0.0@n64 # installs version 1.0.0 of ConfigLib from n64

---

ncc cli

ncc's command-line interface serves as the central hub for managing your projects and packages. This CLI empowers you to perform tasks like project creation, package installation, and project building.

Project Management (project)

The command project provides a set of commands for managing projects, such as creating a new project and applying a builtin template to a project. This part of the documentation will guide you through the process of creating a new project and applying a template to it both for CLI-based projects and library projects.

Creating a new project (create)

To create a new project, you can use the project create command, this command will create a new project in the current working directory. You must specify details about the project you want to create, such as the project name, package name, and the compiler extension to use.

Option	Required	Example	Description
--name, -n	Yes	ExampleProject	The name of the project
--package, --pkg	Yes	com.example.project	The package name to use, see Package Naming for more information
--path, -p	No	example_project	The directory to create/use to initialize the project in, if not provided then --name would be used instead

ncc project create --name ExampleProject --package com.example.project

Once the project is created, will see a new directory with the name of the project you specified, this directory will contain the project's source code and other files that are required for the project to function properly, more importantly it will contain the package.json file which is the project's configuration file that ncc uses to manage and build the project.

Applying Templates (template)

Templates are used to apply a predefined structure to a project, this is not a requirement but makes it easier to get started with a project. ncc comes with a few builtin templates that you can use to create a project

Template Name	Description
phpcli	A template for creating a CLI-based project
phplib	A template for creating a library project

To apply a template, simply use the project template command, this command will apply a template to the project in the current working directory or the directory specified by the --path option.

Option	Required	Example	Description
--name, -n	Yes	phpcli	The name of the template to apply
--path, -p	No	example_project	The directory to create/use to apply the the template to, if not provided then the current working directory would be used instead

ncc project template --name phpcli

Once the template is applied, you will see additional files and directories created by ncc; these files and directories are part of the template and are required for the project to function properly, your project.json file will also be updated to reflect the changes made by the template.

Package Management (package or pkg)

The command package provides a set of commands for managing packages, such as installing packages and uninstalling packages, pkg is an alias for package and can be used interchangeably.

Note: that most of these operations requires root privileges, so it's recommended to run ncc with sudo or as root.

Listing Installed Packages (list)

To list all the installed packages, you can use the package list command, this command will list all the installed packages and their versions.

$ ncc package list
   com.symfony.console=2.0.7
   com.symfony.polyfill_php72=v1.28.0
   com.symfony.http_kernel=2.0.7
   com.symfony.event_dispatcher=2.0.7
Total: 4 packages

Installing Packages (install)

To install a package, you can use the package install command, this command will install the specified package and all its dependencies. There are two ways to install a package, you can either install a package from a remote source or install a package from a local source such as a local .ncc file.

Option	Required	Example	Description
--package, -p	Yes	symfony/process=latest@packagist or com.example.package.ncc	The package to install it can be a remote package or a local package, see Remote Package Syntax (RPS) for more information when installing a remote package
--version, -v	No	1.0.0 or latest	The version of the package to install, defaults to latest
--reinstall	No	Not Applicable	Reinstall the package even if it's already installed
--skip-dependencies	No	Not Applicable	Skips installing the package's dependencies
-y	No	Not Applicable	Skips the confirmation prompt when installing a package

ncc package install -p symfony/process=latest@packagist -y

Note

the package and ask you to confirm the installation before installing the package, but for remote packages, ncc will cannot display this information without downloading the package first, so it will ask you to confirm the installation

Uninstalling Packages (uninstall)

To uninstall a package, you can use the package uninstall command, this command will uninstall the specified package. If you don't specify a version, ncc will uninstall all versions of the package.

Option	Required	Example	Description
--package, -p	Yes	com.example.package or com.symfony.process	The package to uninstall
--version, -v	No	1.0.0 or latest	The version to uninstall, if not specified then all versions will be uninstalled
-y	No	Not Applicable	Skips the confirmation prompt when uninstalling a package

ncc package uninstall -p symfony/process -v 1.0.0 -y

Uninstalling All Packages (uninstall-all)

To uninstall all packages, you can use the package uninstall-all command, this command will uninstall all the packages that were installed using ncc. This command does not accept any options other than -y to skip the confirmation prompt.

ncc package uninstall-all -y

Fix Broken Packages (fix-broken)

To fix broken packages, you can use the package fix-broken command, this command will attempt to fix or uninstall packages that are broken. This command does not accept any options other than -y to skip the confirmation prompt.

The command does the following checks

• Check each package to see if they are broken eg; missing files, or any other unrecoverable error that would prevent the package from being loaded correctly, these packages will be uninstalled.
• Check each package's dependencies to see if they are installed, if not, it will try to determine all the missing dependencies.

ncc package fix-broken -y

Credentials Management (cred)

Credentials are used in ncc to pull packages from private sources, such as private repositories on GitHub, GitLab, Gitea, and so on. ncc uses a credential manager to manage credentials for these sources, this command provides a set of commands for managing credentials.

All credentials stored by ncc are encrypted using the provided token/password, this means each entry in the credential manager is encrypted and requires a secret to decrypt it, so even if the credential database can be accessed, the credentials cannot be decrypted without the secret.

Note: The credential manager is not a password manager, it's only used to store credentials for private sources such as private repositories on GitHub, GitLab, Gitea, and so on, root access is required to access and make changes to the credential manager. The credential database is only accessible by root.

Adding a credential (add)

To add a credential, you can use the cred add command, this command will add a new credential to the credential manager, this command will prompt you to enter the credential details such as the credential name, the credential type, and the credential token/password, if you provide the options needed for these details, you can skip the prompts by using the options instead.

Option	Required	Example	Description
--alias	Yes	johndoe	The alias of the credential
--auth-type	Yes	login or pat	The type of the credential, can either be login (Username & Password) or pat (Personal Access Token)
--username	Yes if login	johndoe	The username of the credential, only required if the credential type is login
--password	Yes if login	password	The password of the credential, only required if the credential type is login
--token	Yes if pat	token	The token of the credential, only required if the credential type is pat

ncc cred add --alias johndoe --auth-type login --username johndoe --password <password>
ncc cred add --alias secretdoe --auth-type pat --token <token>

Removing a credential (remove)

To remove a credential, you can use the cred remove command, this command will remove a credential from the credential manager, this command requires the '--alias' option to specify the credential to remove.

Option	Required	Example	Description
--alias	Yes	johndoe	The alias of the user

ncc cred remove --alias johndoe

Listing credential entries (list)

To list all the credential entries, you can use the cred list command, this command will list all the credential entries in the credential manager.

$ ncc cred list
Entries:
 - johndoe  (encrypted)
 - secretdoe  (encrypted)
Total: 2

Managing Repositories (repository or repo)

Repositories are used in ncc to pull packages from remote sources, such as GitHub, GitLab, Gitea, and so on. ncc uses a repository manager to manage repositories for these sources, this command provides a set of commands for managing repositories.

Note that ncc currently supports the following repository types:

• GitHub
• GitLab
• Gitea
• Packagist

And by default, ncc comes with the following repositories:

Name	Type	Host	Description
n64	gitlab	git.n64.cc	The official n64 git instance, maintained by Nosial & a community of volunteers
packagist	packagist	packagist.org	The official Packagist repository, mainly used for Composer packages
github	github	github.com	GitHub's official Git instance
gitlab	gitlab	gitlab.com	GitLab's official Git instance
gitgud	gitlab	gitgud.io	Gitgud's public GitLab instance, maintained by a community of volunteers
nocturn9x	gitea	git.nocturn9x.space	Nocturn9x's private Gitea instance, maintained by a community of volunteers from the private cloud
martinvlba	gitea	git.martinvlba.eu	Martinvlba's public Gitea instance, maintained by the site owner
kuny	gitea	git.it-kuny.ch	Kuny's public Gitea instance, maintained by the site owner

If you'd like to add your own repository to ncc as a default repository, you can submit a pull request to add it to the repositories.json file, this file contains all the default repositories that ncc will attempt to add when first installing ncc.

Adding a repository (add)

To add a repository to ncc, you can use the repo add command, this command will add a new repository to the repository manager, this command requires you to provide the repository name, the repository type, and the repository host.

Option	Required	Example	Description
--name	Yes	n64	The name of the repository
--type	Yes	gitlab	The type of the repository, can either be gitlab, github, gitea, or packagist
--host	Yes	git.n64.cc	The host of the repository, this is the URL to the repository eg; git.n64.cc for the n64 repository (Without http/https)
--ssl	No	true or false	Whether or not to use SSL when connecting to the repository, defaults to true

ncc repo add --name n64 --type gitlab --host git.n64.cc

Removing a repository (remove)

To remove a repository, you can use the repo remove command, this command will remove a repository from the repository manager, this command requires the '--name' option to specify the repository to remove.

Option	Required	Example	Description
--name	Yes	n64	The name of repo

ncc repo remove --name n64

Listing repositories (list)

To list all the repositories, you can use the repo list command, this command will list all the repositories in the repository manager.

$ ncc repo list
 - n64 (git.n64.cc) [gitlab]
 - packagist (packagist.org) [packagist]
 - github (api.github.com) [github]
 - gitlab (gitlab.com) [gitlab]
 - gitgud (gitgud.io) [gitlab]
 - nocturn9x (git.nocturn9x.space) [gitea]
 - martinvlba (git.martinvlba.eu) [gitea]
 - kuny (git.it-kuny.ch) [gitea]
Total: 8

Building Projects (build)

The build command is responsible for building projects, this command will build the project in the current working directory or the directory specified by the --path option.

Option	Required	Example	Description
--path, -p	No	ExampleProject	The directory to create/use to build the project in, if not provided then the current working directory would be used instead
--config, -c	No	release	The build configuration file to use, if not provided then the default build configuration will be used instead
--output, -o	No	program	The output file to produce, if not provided then the default output in your build configuration will be used instead

ncc build

ncc build --config release_executable --output program

Execute (exec)

The execute command is responsible for executing packages, this command can execute packages that are installed on your system, or you can specify a package to execute from directly.

Note: Depending on if the package is statically built, you need to ensure that you have the required dependencies installed on your system, if you don't have the required dependencies installed, the package will fail to execute.

Option	Required	Example	Description
--package	Yes	com.example.program (From the system) or com.example.program.ncc (Local file)	The package to execute, this can either be a package installed on your system or a local package file
--exec-version	No	1.0.0 or latest	The version of the package to execute if the package is installed on your system, defaults to latest
--exec-args	No	--arg1 --arg2	The arguments to pass to the package when executing it, this has to be the last option in the command before the options to pass to the package

ncc exec --package com.example.program --exec-version latest --exec-args --arg1 --arg2

ncc exec --package com.example.program.ncc --exec-args --arg1 --arg2

The exit code of the package will be returned as the exit code of the command, if the package fails to execute, the command will return an exit code of 1 and display the error details.