how to add a 3rd party library to magento?

Question

The library doesn't need to integrate with magento, it's mostly a wrapper that communicates with an API.

I would like to be able to use this library and make these API calls from within a controller or model.

Where can I put the library? How do I add them to the autoloader?

Answer 1

As a solution that works perfectly: you can extend the varien_event_observer, create your own autoloader function and and by using the controller_front_init_before event you push this autoloader in front of the __autoload stack. this example of integrating solarium and symphony event dispatcher can explain it :

class JeroenVermeulen_Solarium_Model_Observer_Autoloader extends Varien_Event_Observer {

    /**
     * This an observer function for the event 'controller_front_init_before'.
     * It prepends our autoloader, so we can load the extra libraries.
     *
     * @param Varien_Event_Observer $event
     */
    public function controllerFrontInitBefore( $event ) {
        spl_autoload_register( array($this, 'load'), true, true );
    }

    /**
     * This function can autoloads classes starting with:
     * - Solarium
     * - Symfony\Component\EventDispatcher
     *
     * @param string $class
     */
    public static function load( $class )
    {
        if ( preg_match( '#^(Solarium|Symfony\\\\Component\\\\EventDispatcher)\b#', $class ) ) {
            $phpFile = Mage::getBaseDir('lib') . '/' . str_replace( '\\', '/', $class ) . '.php';
            require_once( $phpFile );
        }
    }

}

and surely your libraries shoud be in the lib pool ! this solution is provided by @Jeroen Vermeulen, and i thank him :)

Answer 2

Look into /lib folder in your website root directory. From Magento Base Directories:

Magento’s library folder is where non-module based Magento code lives. This include a large amount of the system code which allows Magento to run, as well as a number of third party libraries (including the Zend Framework). The library is also the last code pool Magento will search when attempting to autoload a file.

So, in other words, if your library supports zend file naming convention - library classes will be found and loaded by magento autoloader. Otherwise you can get path of your /lib directory with Mage::getBaseDir(‘lib’) and write something like

require_once(Mage::getBaseDir('lib') . '/EZComponents/Base/src/base.php');