Simple patches plugin for Composer. Applies a patch from a local or remote file to any package required with composer.

Example composer.json:

{
  "require": {
    "cweagans/composer-patches": "~1.0",
    "drupal/drupal": "~8.2"
  },
  "config": {
    "preferred-install": "source"
  },
  "extra": {
    "patches": {
      "drupal/drupal": {
        "Add startup configuration for PHP server": "https://www.drupal.org/files/issues/add_a_startup-1543858-30.patch"
      }
    }
  }
}

Instead of a patches key in your root composer.json, use a patches-file key.

{
  "require": {
    "cweagans/composer-patches": "~1.0",
    "drupal/drupal": "~8.2"
  },
  "config": {
    "preferred-install": "source"
  },
  "extra": {
    "patches-file": "local/path/to/your/composer.patches.json"
  }
}

Then your composer.patches.json should look like this:

{
  "patches": {
    "vendor/project": {
      "Patch title": "http://example.com/url/to/patch.patch"
    }
  }
}

If you want your project to accept patches from dependencies, you must have the following in your composer file:

{
  "require": {
      "cweagans/composer-patches": "^1.5.0"
  },
  "extra": {
      "enable-patching": true
  }
}

There may be situations in which you want to ignore a patch supplied by a dependency. For example:

• You use a different more recent version of a dependency, and now a patch isn't applying.
• You have a more up to date patch than the dependency, and want to use yours instead of theirs.
• A dependency's patch adds a feature to a project that you don't need.
• Your patches conflict with a dependency's patches.

{
  "require": {
    "cweagans/composer-patches": "~1.0",
    "drupal/drupal": "~8.2",
    "drupal/lightning": "~8.1"
  },
  "config": {
    "preferred-install": "source"
  },
  "extra": {
    "patches": {
      "drupal/drupal": {
        "Add startup configuration for PHP server": "https://www.drupal.org/files/issues/add_a_startup-1543858-30.patch"
      }
    },
    "patches-ignore": {
      "drupal/lightning": {
        "drupal/panelizer": {
          "This patch has known conflicts with our Quick Edit integration": "https://www.drupal.org/files/issues/2664682-49.patch"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Composer blocks you from downloading anything from HTTP URLs, you can disable this for your project by adding a secure-http setting in the config section of your composer.json. Note that the config section should be under the root of your composer.json.

{
  "config": {
    "secure-http": false
  }
}

However, it's always advised to setup HTTPS to prevent MITM code injection.

If a patch cannot be applied (hunk failed, different line endings, etc.) a message will be shown and the patch will be skipped.

To enforce throwing an error and stopping package installation/update immediately, export COMPOSER_EXIT_ON_PATCH_FAILURE=1.

• This plugin is much more simple to use and maintain
• This plugin doesn't require you to specify which package version you're patching
• This plugin is easy to use with Drupal modules (which don't use semantic versioning).
• This plugin will gather patches from all dependencies and apply them as if they were in the root composer.json

A ton of this code is adapted or taken straight from https://github.com/jpstacey/composer-patcher, which is abandoned in favor of https://github.com/netresearch/composer-patches-plugin, which is (IMHO) overly complex and difficult to use.