README

Reusable PHP utility traits and helpers shared across GCWorld applications.

Version

2.3.1

Requirements

• PHP 8.4 or newer
• cURL extension
• GD extension
• Composer

Installation

Install the package through Composer:

composer require gcworld/utilities

Usage

Most helpers are provided as traits. Add the traits needed by an application's utility or support class:

<?php

namespace App\Support;

use GCWorld\Utilities\Traits\Str;
use GCWorld\Utilities\Traits\Time;

final class Utilities
{
    use Str;
    use Time;
}

The static helpers are then available on that class:

$encoded = Utilities::base64url_encode('example');
$parts = Utilities::searchSplit('alpha "two words"');
$displayTime = Utilities::formatTime('14:30:00');

DoubleMetaphone is a standalone class rather than a trait:

use GCWorld\Utilities\DoubleMetaphone;

$metaphone = new DoubleMetaphone('Smith');
$primary = $metaphone->getPrimary();
$secondary = $metaphone->getSecondary();

Available utilities

HTTP form posts

Curl::post() and Curl::postRaw() encode form fields according to RFC 3986. Use Curl::postStringRaw() when the request body is already serialized.

The cURL helpers return an empty string when a request fails. Callers that need error details, status validation, headers, retries, or authentication policy should use a dedicated HTTP client.

Client IP addresses

General::getIP() recognizes forwarding headers used by the GCWorld HAProxy environment. Those headers must be supplied or sanitized by a trusted proxy. The returned address is suitable for the package's established logging use case and should not be treated as an authorization boundary by itself.

Development

The repository includes a Docker Compose environment based on the same PHP image used in CI:

./dc up -d
./dc exec php composer install
./dc exec php composer check
./dc down

Copy docker-compose.override.yml.example to docker-compose.override.yml when local Composer credentials or SSH access are required. The override file is ignored by Git.

The Composer quality suite runs:

• PHP syntax checks
• PHPStan level 6
• PHPCS with PSR-12
• PHPUnit characterization tests

GitHub Actions runs the suite on PHP 8.4 and 8.5. Semantic-version tags also validate the version metadata and create GitHub releases from the matching changelog entry.

Compatibility

This package is used by multiple downstream products. Existing public method names—including legacy snake_case names—are retained to avoid breaking consumers.

License

Proprietary.