[FIXED] What's the role of the random string after ComposerAutoloaderInit in autoload.php?

Issue

I do not need help in writing a package that uses composer-php. I am just trying to understand the code of composer-php.

My focus is on the random string in a class name such as ComposerAutoloaderInit6747b392e558bd54c2f1031b944d5730 in autoload.php.

What is being achieved by this random string? I suspect that the goal is to make sure that the class name is unique, but why? What issues has been addressed by a unique class name?

Solution

In PHP you cannot have two different classes with the same FQN (fully qualified name). But you can have multiple autoloaders. Having unique name ensures that you can have multiple independent autoloaders generated by Composer without any risk of name conflicts.

And it is not that rare situation as you may think. Usually you have only one autoloader in project, but in ecosystems without native Composer support (like WordPress - quite often plugins bundle Composer's autoloader as part of its code) or tools packaged in phar archive (like phpunit) you may have two separate autoloaders generated by Composer. Unique name ensures that they can coexist each other.

BTW: this suffix is configurable by autoloader-suffix settings.

Answered By - rob006