Zend 2 Plugin Manager cant find class - plugins

Question

Im new to Zend 2 and are trying to migrate my Zend 1 project to Zend 2. I had an Acl plugin in my Zend 1 project that I shared with several apps using symlink. I thought now that I migrate to Zend 2 I'd create my own package in the Vendor folder. I downloaded the Skeleton project and tried to add my plugin as this:
in the vendor folder I create myname\commons\Acl and added a my Module.php
in myname\commons\Acl i created src\WebAcl\Controller\Plugin and a added WebAclPlugin.php with the namespace WebAcl\Controller\Plugin
In my myname\commons\Acl I created ./config and added module.config.php with the content
return array(
// added for Acl ###################################
' controller_plugins' => array(
'invokables' => array(
'WebAclPlugin' => 'WebAcl\Controller\Plugin\WebAclPlugin',
)
),
// end: added for Acl ###################################
);
When I run this I get:
Fatal error: Class 'WebAcl\Controller\Plugin\WebAclPlugin' not found in AbstractPluginManager.php on line 170
What am I doing wrong?
Edit: If I in my module specify the classmap it works
'Zend\Loader\ClassMapAutoloader' => array(
__DIR__ . '/autoload_classmap.php',
)
But if I use "autoload" it doesnt work
'Zend\Loader\StandardAutoloader' => array(
'namespaces' => array(
__NAMESPACE__ => __DIR__ . '/src/' . __NAMESPACE__,
),
),
Edit 2: This solved the problem:
'Zend\Loader\StandardAutoloader' => array(
'namespaces' => array(
__NAMESPACE__ => __DIR__ . '/src/' *.str_replace("\\", "/", __NAMESPACE__),*
),
),
Still Im trying to figure out what composer.phar actually does? See additional question:
Additional question: I read that I should add my namespace in composer.json and run composer.phar update, which adds it to auto_namespace. I did this, but do I need to when I specify it in my module? Sorry if my questions are stupied.

Answer 1

The plugin manager will try to load the class using new which will make the registered autoloaders try to load the class. If there isn't an autoloader that can load this class, then you'll get the fatal error.
You don't say if myname\commons\Acl is a ZF2 module or a composer loaded package.
If it's a composer package, then you need to add:
"autoload": {
"psr-4": {
"WebAcl\\": "myname/commons/Acl/src/WebAcl"
}
}
to composer.json and then run composer.phar dumpautoload.
If you want myname/commons/Acl to be a module, then you need to add a Module.php to myname/commons/Acl that looks like this:
<?php
namespace WebAcl;
class Module
{
public function getAutoloaderConfig()
{
return array(
'Zend\Loader\StandardAutoloader' => array(
'namespaces' => array(
__NAMESPACE__ => __DIR__ . '/src/' . __NAMESPACE__,
),
),
);
}
}
You now need to tell your application's ModuleManager to load this module in application.config.php:
Add 'WebAcl' to the list of 'modules'
Add the path to the module in the 'module_paths' key:
'module_paths' => array(
'WebAcl' => "./vendor/myname/commons/Acl",
'./module',
'./vendor',
),
You have to do this as there isn't a direct mapping from the namespace name (WebApi) to the path name on disk like there usually is in the ./modules directory.
The ModuleManager should now find your module and the autoloader should be able to autoload any file in the WebAcl namespace within vendor/myname/commons/Acl/src/WebApi.
Of course, the composer route is easier if you don't need any other features of a ZF2 Module.